It's the Spyrit of the Season
by Deliwiel
Summary: Christmas plans get put on hold when Mac gets a video message from an old enemy, and our favorite spy has to race across the globe to rescue someone who once saved his life. Rated T for my sake, and injuries later on.
1. Chapter 1

_**Hey guys! I'm back! Man, I've missed writing for this fandom.**_

 _ **Okay so full disclosure, I literally had this idea last night and started writing it this morning, so it's really rough, but I really wanted to get something posted before Christmas. I'm probably going to go back and edit it, though I'll let you guys know if I do that so you can go re-read what I've changed, but for now, let me know what you think! (Also, the title is definitely a WIP as well XD )**_

 _ **I don't own MacGyver, though I'd love to write for them someday.**_

"Jack, it's literally three days before Christmas, how have you not gotten any Christmas shopping done?" Mac asked his friend in disbelief, though Jack could tell the blond was trying to hold back a laugh.

"Hey," the older man defended. "It's been a bit of a hectic holiday season, and chasing down bad guys doesn't really give a guy much of a chance to go shopping! Just give me some ideas of what to get everyone. I was thinking for Matty I could get her a whip, but then I realized she'd actually use it, mostly on me, so now I'm out of ideas."

"Out of ideas for everyone because Matty would use the whip?"

"Well, yeah...hers was really the only one I'd thought of…"

"Why would you think getting Matty a whip would be a good idea, anyway?"

"It's supposed to be a gag gift, Mac, but like I said, I realized she'd probably use it, therefore taking away the funny aspect of it."

Mac's phone rang and the two of them stopped arguing, especially when they saw it was Matty calling. "Hey Matty," Mac answered as he put the phone on speaker. "What's up?"

"I need you back at Phoenix now," Matty replied, not even bothering with a greeting of her own, though she very rarely did that anyway. "How soon can you get here?"

"Uh, twenty minutes?" Mac estimated, looking at their surroundings.

"Make it fifteen."

Jack mimed cracking a whip at MacGyver before he leaned over and spoke loudly into the speaker of the phone, even though he knew Matty could hear him perfectly fine without doing that. "What's goin' on?"

"We've got a situation here that Mac needs to see." That was all Matty said on the matter, even though she knew the men were dying to know what the deal was. "Just get here as soon as you can," she re-stated, ending the phone call before the two spies could ask any more questions.

Mac looked at Jack. "Guess we're going to work for Christmas," he said. "I wonder what's so urgent," he added. Jack made an 'I don't know' noise and shrugged.

"Probably just something like 'Hey guys, sorry to ruin your Christmas, just kidding, no I'm not!'"

Mac sighed. "I thought you two were getting along?"

"This is us getting along!" Jack insisted, making Mac nod in mock seriousness.

"Hey, maybe your gift to Matty could be not arguing with her every step of the way," MacGyver added in a playful, yet somewhat serious tone.

The older agent brushed off Mac's suggestion with a shrug and a sniff. "Nah, we're not at that level yet."

Mac shook his head, deciding his friend was a lost cause in some aspects. They both got into Jack's Shelby and took off, heading for the building that everyone thought was a think tank.

 _0-0-0_

When Mac and Jack pulled into work, they'd already gotten two different texts from Matty asking where they were, so they knew that whatever it was that their boss wanted, it had to be serious.

"What do you think it is?" Jack asked again as they walked in the building. "Think we've got some top secret mission that only we can do? Protect the president? Stop World War Three?"

"First of all, all the missions we do are top secret ones that only we can do," Mac pointed out. "Second of all, what's your obsession with getting a job to protect the president?"

"I dunno, I just think it'd be awesome to get that assignment," Jack replied as they walked towards the elevator. The two of them got on and hit the button for their floor, and when the sliding doors closed, Jack turned back to his friend. "But seriously, what do you think it is?"

"I honestly don't know, Jack. If I knew, don't you think I would already be here, or at least would have told you by now?"

"Maybe," Jack admitted. "But maybe you just like seeing me guess at what the mission is!"

"Trust me Jack, that's not it, and I don't know what the mission is."

There was a moment of silence as the elevator continued to get closer to their floor. The war room was on the twelfth floor, and it was on floor seven that the silence ended. "Okay, here's another question," Jack began. "What is your dream mission?"

"My what?"

"You know, your dream mission! If you only had one mission left before you retired or got killed or somethin' like that, what would it be?"

"Uh, thanks for insinuating that I'd get killed on my so-called 'dream-mission,'" MacGyver replied, giving his partner a sideways glance.

"Oh come on, that's not what-you know what I meant!" Jack noticed a glint in MacGyver's eyes as the blond smirked at him, and the older man rolled his eyes. After a few more moments of Mac not answering, Jack prompted his friend again. "So…"

"I don't know, Jack," Mac confessed. "I've never really thought about it. What's yours? Protecting the president?"

"Nice try at deflecting the question off yourself, but no, that's not my dream mission," Jack replied, making a face at Mac. "My dream mission would be to stop a crazy media tycoon from unleashing war upon the western world."

The elevator doors opened as Jack finished describing his dream mission, but Mac paused after they stepped off. "Wait…isn't that the plot of a James Bond movie?"

"Hmm? I dunno," Jack replied, his tone indicating that he was lying.

"I don't think you can choose a mission that's already been done by double-o-seven," Mac said as they walked towards the war room.

"How do you know that's what it's from?"

"Pretty sure that's the plot of ' _Tomorrow Never Dies.'_ You didn't say we could choose a mission that's already been done in fiction, and you didn't say it had to be a realistic mission either."

"Hey, that movie could happen," Jack shot back.

Mac pulled the door to the war room open and was about to reply to Jack when he happened to glance at the screen hanging on the wall. What he saw made the young agent stop in shock. There was a video playing, and it seemed to be displaying footage of a small town on fire. For some reason, the village looked familiar to Mac, though he couldn't figure out why.

"Matty, what is this?" Mac asked his boss, who was standing in front of the screen like she usually did, though her expression was somber, not annoyed like it usually was when Jack entered the room. The expression on her face at the moment was saved for times when she knew the news she was about to deliver had the ability to wreck someone's day.

"This message was sent to the military, and when they watched it, they immediately did their best to find you; they eventually found that this is where you worked, and it was sent here."

"Why me?" Mac had a sinking feeling in his stomach, though he didn't know why. "Matty, what's the rest of the message?"

Matty gave Riley a look, and with a few clicks of the keyboard, the hacker brought up a second video.

The video showed a young man strapped to a chair with a bag over his head; he was completely in the dark save for the light spotlighting him. MacGyver was about to ask what was going on, but then someone on the video, more than likely behind the camera, began speaking.

"This message is for Angus MacGyver." The voice was disguised by a synthesizer, but the changing voice was still easy to understand. "MacGyver, when you get this, I want you to take a good long look at the village that my men destroyed. Do you know where it is?" The man speaking paused as if he were giving Mac a chance to look at the two videos, which the agent did. He knew that he knew the village from somewhere, but he was still having difficulty placing it. "Not sure?" the voice asked. "Maybe this will help jog your memory." An order was barked out in what Mac recognized as Arabic, and a hand reached out from the dark, yanking the bag off the prisoner's head. When his face was revealed, Mac's stomach dropped even more. "You must know who I am by now," the voice continued as the man in the chair was revealed. "You have thirty-six hours to meet me at the place where you ruined my life, or this young man gets a bullet in the head. Come alone."

With that, the video ended, and the room was left in silence as the frozen picture of the prisoner's scared face stared back at all of them.

 _ **Okay, thoughts? Like it? Love it? Hate it? Definitely needs to be re-worked? Lemme know!**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Okay! Here is chapter two. I'm letting you guys know now, I usually wait until I've basically completed a story before I begin posting, but this one is a complete WIP, so it may take a day or so longer than usual for me to get the chapters out to you.**_

 _ **Let me know if you think it needs anything else!**_

 _ **I don't own the show *eye roll***_

MacGyver turned to his boss, a question on his lips. Matty seemed to guess what he was going to ask though, because she answered his question before he even voiced it.

"This was sent out twelve hours ago. We just barely got it from the army, and I called you as soon as I saw it."

"Mac, what is this?" Jack asked. "You know who those guys are?"

"Yeah, I uh...I know them from back in my army days," Mac explained, still reeling slightly from the revelation of the prisoner. The blond turned to his boss, knowing that she was going to tell him that there was no way he was going to risk sacrificing himself for the kid. "Matty, look, I know that we have a strict 'no negotiating with terrorists' policy, but that kid helped me when no one else would. I can't let him die because of me."

"I understand, Mac," Matty replied. "I really do. I just can't risk losing you because of this; you're too important to the team."

"All due respect, Matty," Jack cut in. "There wouldn't really be a team if there weren't people like this kid out there for us to save. Sure, there would probably still be bad guys needing to be put away, drug lords to bust, presidents to save-"

"I can't tell if you're trying to argue against my point, or if you're trying to agree with me," Matty interrupted, raising one eyebrow.

"What I'm saying is," Jack continued, giving Matty a small stink eye. "Little people matter too, and wouldn't we want someone to do the same for us if one of us got captured?"

Matty didn't look convinced.

"Matty," Mac continued. "I won't use Phoenix resources, but please. Can I just have a few days to go out and get him back safely?"

Matty stared at the blond, and she could tell from his expression, as well as his posture that he wasn't going to take no for an answer. "Mac, I can't sanction this," she said. The agent's face fell and he opened his mouth to argue, but she held up a hand to stop him. "I think you need a break. I'm giving you two days of leave, and I don't want you coming into work at all during those two days," she added. "In fact, I want all three of you to take a break; I have no control over what you do in your spare time."

Mac nodded in understanding. "Thank you, Matty," he said as Jack lightly slugged him on the shoulder.

"For what? All I did was tell you to take a few days off."

Mac let a small, grateful grin flit across his face, though Matty wasn't finished talking. "Just realize that if something happens, whatever you do is unsanctioned, so if you get caught, there isn't much I can do from here," she warned.

"Relax," Jack drawled. "We got plenty'a time to get over there and come up with a plan to-"

"Stop," Matty said, raising her hand. "I can't have any part in planning this, nor can I know what you're planning on doing." She gestured for the three agents to exit the room, which they did, heading off to prepare for their impromptu trip.

 _0-0-0_

"So who is this kid again?" Jack asked about thirty minutes into their flight to Afghanistan. Riley was just a few rows behind them, but she had her headphones on and was busy hacking the airplane's wifi, so Jack and Mac had time to themselves.

Since they were technically not on Phoenix business, the three of them had to fly commercially to Afghanistan, but Matty had managed to pull a few strings and was able to get them on the next possible flight out. The flight wasn't all that full, which meant Mac could speak a little more freely than he could have otherwise.

"It was back when I was in the service," Mac began. "My team and I had been sent by Pena to check out different potential potential hotspots for known or rumoured bombers and their base of site I was at was the smallest, and there were uneven numbers in our group, so I volunteered to go alone; it was dumb, and Pena didn't want to let me do it, but I insisted so that everyone else could have a partner. Our intel had said that the base was going to be empty, but as usual, things didn't go as planned."

 _0-0-0_

 _Four Years Ago_

It was dark outside as MacGyver snuck through the building, with no weapons on him except his brain and his Swiss Army knife. The hallways inside the building were cold, which MacGyver found odd. The temperature outside was bordering close to sixty degrees outside, so the fact that it felt like less than fifty in the building alerted Mac that whoever used this base was trying to keep the place cool for a reason. He searched room by room, trying to find the source of the cold air. Many of the materials that the terrorists used to make their bombs used had parts that were extremely heat-sensitive, and they became useless if they were exposed to a certain temperature before the bomb was set, so Mac knew that the materials would be stored in the coolest place in the building.

After a few more minutes of careful searching, Mac finally opened a door to a room and felt the cold, chilly air hit him like a wall when he entered the room. He stepped inside, and sure enough, there were several tables around the room with all the supplies one would need to make an IED, complete with vests to strap the bomb to someone. Mac spared a moment to take inventory of everything he could see, then hurried back to the door, checking both sides of the hallway to make sure he was alone before he quietly closed the door and got on his radio.

"This is Section 64, and I have a hotspot; repeat, Section 64 is a hotspot. Awaiting orders, over."

Mac released the button on his radio, waiting for the response with orders telling him what to do. After a few moments, the radio crackled to life, and Pena's voice came over the equipment. "Section 64, can you describe how hot the hotspot is?"

"Well sir, if our metaphorical fires suddenly became real, this place would be gone in seconds, along with about half a mile in every direction."

There was another moment of silence, then Pena delivered his command. "Section 64, there's not enough time to transport the heat out; neutralize hotspot and return to base."

"Understood," Mac replied. "Section 64 out." With that, the blond slung his backpack off his shoulder as he glanced around, trying to decide the best way to neutralize the bomb materials without setting them off and destroying a half mile radius around the compound. He spotted a tank of gasoline in the corner. The blond stuck his radio into the main pocket of his pack, and he also reached in and pulled out a box of matches that he kept on him at all times. Once he had the necessary items, he stood up and swung his backpack back over his shoulders as he strode over to the gasoline.

As he approached the metal tank, Mac took notice of a window on the other side of the room, and decided that was his best chance at getting out of the burning building quickly. Since they were at ground level, he wasn't worried at all about the fall.

He reached the gas tank, grabbed the handle and lifted, happy to feel that the container was more than half full. Taking another moment to look at the materials on the table again, Mac felt confident that if he lit the place on fire, nothing would explode. The C4 caused him a little worry, but he knew that without a detonator, many of the materials were fairly tame on their own, including the C4, so he wasn't too worried about the plastic explosive material.

Realizing that it was the best way to get rid of all the materials without causing an explosion, Mac uncapped the lid of the gas tank and began to spread the flammable liquid around. While he was an EOD and was trained in disarming bombs, Mac figured it was better to stop the bombs from being built at all.

Finally all the gas had been dumped around the room, and Mac set the tank down as he pulled his matches out of his pocket where he'd stuck it once he decided to spread the gas, seeing as how he needed both hands for the task. He pulled one of the matches out to strike and light it as he began to walk over to the window, but before he had gone five steps, the blond felt like something was off.

His instincts screamed at him to get out of the way, and it was a good thing he did. Right as he began to move, Mac heard the crack of a firing weapon, but instead of hitting flesh, the bullet was stopped by the backpack and vest he was wearing; it still hurt, and for a moment all the blond saw was black, but he was able to push past the pressure and the pain the bullet caused, and continue moving. He could hear a man yelling behind him, but Mac's hearing was a little off thanks to being hit by a bullet, so he couldn't tell if there was only one gunman or if there were more.

Suddenly there was another crack as a gun was discharged again, and this time Mac let out a cry of pain when the bullet entered his shoulder, just to the right of his shoulder blade. He was so close to the window though, and the force of the bullet propelled him the rest of the way to his escape. He heard the man behind him yelling again, but Mac didn't speak Arabic, and he didn't care to listen to what the tone was implying; he figured it meant something like "Kill him," or "Don't let him get away," or something else along those lines.

Thankfully, the window unlocked and Mac opened it easily. Before he dove out the window though, he turned and tossed a lit match onto a part of the gasoline that he'd spread around the room, which immediately began burning. Mac heard the man behind him yelling something else that Mac assumed was cursing, but he didn't stick around to try and figure out what it was the man was saying exactly. Instead, the blond turned and dove out the open window, accidentally leading with his injured shoulder as he fell into a roll. When he hit the ground, his weight was put on the injured limb and caused the pain to flare up, and black spots began to dance in his vision again.

He knew he didn't have time to mollycoddle his shoulder though, so Mac pushed himself to his feet and started running, the adrenaline in his body keeping him going. He could hear the man in the building behind him yelling, though the blond didn't know if the man was yelling at him or yelling for backup to help put out the flames. Mac glanced behind him for a second at the burning building and found that the flames were already beginning to lick the frame of the window he'd leapt out of, the blaze growing bigger by the second as it continued to feed on the ample amounts of gasoline.

MacGyver continued running, doing his best to ignore the pain in his shoulder and the raggedness of his breath as he put as much distance between him and the building. Finally after almost ten minutes of flat out sprinting, MacGyver came across a stream, and he felt a sense of relief. While it was still dark outside, Mac thought he could see the opposite side of the river about twenty feet across. The EOD slowed to a jog, and then a walk as he reached the body of water, and he breathed in deep, slow breaths, trying to calm his racing heart and uneven breaths.

His lungs were burning, as was his shoulder, and Mac knew that if he didn't get help soon, the wound would become infected, and that was the last thing he needed. His back where the first bullet had hit him was also throbbing, and he felt like he had a great big rock sitting on his back; he figured he'd bruised a few ribs at least thanks to that bullet, but there wasn't much he could do about it at the moment.

Mac forced himself to slow his breathing down even more, knowing that the more quick and shallow his breathing was, the more chance he had of passing out. He stepped towards the river, knowing his shoulder needed to be cleaned. He didn't know how dirty the water was though, and he didn't want to risk giving his wound an even nastier infection if there was something in the water. Slinging his backpack off his back again proved to be more painful and difficult the second time around, but the blond finally dropped the bag on the ground and pulled out his knife from his pocket.

He began to cut the mesh away from the straps on his pack, figuring he could make a filter to clean the water, at least a little bit, but before he could begin creating said filter, Mac heard something from a little ways downstream. He glanced in the direction the sound had come from, grimacing as the pain in his shoulder began to increase. After a few moments, Mac was able to make out the shape of a smaller person, probably a teenager, and next to him, there was the shape of a large animal that Mac realized was a horse. The horse's shape looked slightly lopsided, and Mac realized that the animal probably had packs of some sort slung across the saddlebags, though whether they were full of water or food, Mac had no idea. Every now and then, the boy had to tug on the horse's lead to get the animal to stop bending down to eat the grass at the side of the riverbank.

MacGyver didn't know who to trust, so he tried to back away as quietly as he could to avoid getting attention drawn to himself, but he didn't pay attention to where he was moving, and he accidentally stepped back onto a round rock. MacGyver fell with a grunt, rolling his eyes at himself as his ankle began to throb as well. Mac put the pain his body was alerting him to aside though as he stared at the boy, who had heard the noise and looked over.

Mac couldn't see much in the dark, but he could almost feel how tense the boy was, and before the EOD specialist could say or do anything, the boy turned and began yelling at the top of his lungs in Arabic. Mac didn't understand what was being said, but he knew that if the boy's yelling drew the attention of the bombers, he was a dead man, and he debated on what to do. He could either run after the boy and try to get him to stop screaming, or he could just run the opposite direction and try to put distance between the loud child and himself. After only a few seconds of calculating the odds, Mac opted for the second choice, pushing himself to his feet and running the opposite direction of the boy.

He barely made it three steps though before his ankle reminded him that it was also injured now, and he fell to the ground, landing rather hard on his injured shoulder. That pain, paired with his quickened breathing caused Mac to start seeing spots dance in front of his vision, and this time he couldn't blink them away. He started to feel his grip on reality slipping away from him, but before he completely lost consciousness, Mac heard the _clop, clop, clop_ of a horse coming his way, and he wondered what the boy was going to do.

Once more, the young EOD officer tried to get away from the teenager, but he barely moved an inch before his spinning head made him stop, and it was only a few seconds after that that the encroaching blackness finally took over, and he fell into unconsciousness.

 _ **Okiedokie! Thoughts?**_


	3. Chapter 3

**_Hello friends! Here is chapter 3 :D_**

 ** _Okay, disclosure, I was watching MacGyver while editing this, so it was a little difficult for me to concentrate on, so let me know if you spot anything that needs to be fixed XD_**

 ** _Also, thank you to everyone who has followed, favorited, reviewed, or read the story! I appreciate you all greatly!_**

 ** _Enjoy!_**

 _Present Time_

"Wait, come on dude, you can't stop there," Jack complained as MacGyver paused his story and unbuckled his seat belt. The blond and Jack had taken a few pauses in the story to order food and drinks, but the blond hadn't paused at such a critical part in the story yet, and Jack didn't want to wait to hear what happened.

"I'll be back in like, two minutes," Mac replied, giving his friend an exasperated look that was only partially real. Jack watched as the blond made his way towards the back of the plane, pausing for a moment to speak with Riley. The hacker pulled her headphones off her one of her ears to speak with her friend, and after a few moments of conversation, Mac straightened back up and continued towards the back of the plane where the restrooms were located.

Jack sat there for a moment as he waited for his friend to come back, but after about thirty seconds he grew fidgety. He signaled one of the flight attendants, and when she got to his seat, the older man ordered a couple of drinks for him and his partner. The flight attendant walked away and Jack touched the screen in front of him, choosing to check out how far they'd come, along with how far they still had to go. He sighed when he saw the numbers; they'd only been in the air for a little over three hours, meaning they still had almost twelve hours left in their flight. Finally after another few minutes, Mac came back and sat back down, strapping his seatbelt back on; Jack gave his partner an odd look.

"What?" Mac asked when he noticed his partner's stare.

"The 'fasten seatbelts' sign is turned off," the older agent pointed out.

"And?"

"So why are you strapping yourself back in?"

"Do I have to have a reason? And do I have to explain that reason to you?"

"Okay, geez, calm down," Jack said, slightly shocked at how snappy Mac sounded.

"I'm sorry," Mac said after a moment. "I'm just worried, I guess."

"You got nothin' to be worried about, Mac," Jack said, putting his hand on his friend's shoulder. "You got good ol' Jack Dalton and Riley Davis as your backup!"

Jack knew the expression MacGyver's face had taken on, and he stopped the blond before he could speak. "And don't say that you're worried about us gettin' hurt. Neither of us had to come along, but we did. You ain't forcin' or draggin' us anywhere, so you can just stop that sorta thinkin' right now."

Mac shut his mouth; that had been exactly what his argument was, and while Jack's argument didn't stop him from worrying about his friends and the fact that they were coming with him on the rescue mission, he knew he wasn't going to dissuade either of them from coming with him the rest of the way once they touched down. Besides, he figured. They were already on the plane, and there wasn't much he could do about it now, so the blond simply looked at Jack and nodded. The older agent looked surprised, but a please smile plastered across his face as he realized he'd won an argument with MacGyver, or at least gotten his point across.

With that happy thought, Jack asked, "So are you gonna finish telling your story?"

"Right," Mac said, straightening in his chair slightly and turning to face his partner. "So I'd passed out right in front of the teenage boy, and when I woke up, I had no idea where I was."

 _0-0-0_

 _Four Years Ago_

Mac heard voices above him, speaking a language he didn't understand. He kept his eyes closed, deciding to try and figure out as much as he could before alerting whoever was around him that he was awake.

There was a woman's voice, along with a voice that he kind of recognized. After a moment, he realized the second voice was that of the teenager from the river bank.

Still unsure of where he was, but hoping he could trust whoever these people were, Mac opened his eyes slowly, though the room he was in wasn't very brightly lit, so it didn't take his eyes very long to adjust. The two people had their backs turned to him, and MacGyver took the opportunity to look around and visually explore his surroundings. He realized that his vest had been removed, leaving him in his black shirt and black cargo pants. His pack took a minute to locate, but he finally spotted it in a corner.

After looking at his surroundings, Mac took stock of his body; his ribs were definitely bruised, but he didn't think any of them were broken or cracked, which was a miracle. His ankle had a homemade splint wrapped around it to keep it steady, and while his shoulder still felt like it was on fire, he could tell that someone had placed a bandage over the wound.

Finally, Mac decided to try and sit up, though his body was extremely sore, and he let out an involuntary groan as he moved, alerting the two strangers to the fact that he was awake. The woman, who looked like she could the boy's mother, grabbed a poker from the fireplace and pointed it at the American, speaking extremely fast at him in a foreign language. Mac couldn't understand what she was saying, but he figured that the gist of it was that she wanted him to stay where he was, so he slowly put his hands up and laid back against the wall the bed was next to, grimacing as his shoulder protested at the applied pressure.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Mac tried assuring the scared woman. She tilted her head as he spoke. "Do you speak any English?" he asked.

After a few seconds, the woman spoke. "You are American?" Her accent was definitely Middle Eastern, but MacGyver internally sighed in relief as he realized she did speak English, at least enough to hopefully understand him.

"Yes," he confirmed. "I promise, I'm not going to hurt you," he said again.

"What are you doing here?" the woman asked.

MacGyver wasn't sure how to answer; the mission he was on was secret, but he had a feeling that this woman wasn't going to buy a lie. "My name is MacGyver, and I'm with the U.S. military," he finally admitted.

"What are you doing out here?" the woman asked again, placing more emphasis on the last two words to show she wanted to know why he was in their particular area.

"I...I can't tell you," MacGyver replied apologetically. "I can promise you though that I mean no harm." The woman looked skeptical, but her lack of impaling Mac caused the blond hope that she believed him, at least a little bit. "Can I...can I ask where I am?"

After considering the blond critically for a moment, the woman replied, though she was somewhat hesitant. "You are in the village of Ak Toba." She seemed to take MacGyver for his word that he wasn't going to hurt them, because she continued speaking. "My name is Aadela, and this is my nephew, Atar. He is the one who brought you here," Aadela added, shooting her nephew an exasperated but caring look. Mac looked over at Atar and gave him a small smile.

"Thanks, bud. And hey, sorry for scaring you," he added. Atar didn't say anything, but he did nod and give MacGyver a small smile in return. The blond looked back to Aadela.

"I'm sorry for causing such an imposition," he said sincerely. "I'll get out of your hair now," he continued, moving slowly to stand up, not wanting to startle the woman into skewering him with the poker still pointed at him. While Aadela didn't move from her position, she still refrained from impaling him, so Mac took that as a win, and as permission to continue moving.

He put a bit of weight on his injured ankle, testing to see how much it could take; while it did throb, it supported at least part of his weight, and he figured it would have to do until he could get back to base.

"Wait," Aadela said as he began limping forward. She lowered the poker slightly, though Mac could tell she was ready to raise it at a moment's notice. "Your shoulder is not good," she said.

"I know," Mac replied, trying not to make his reply sound too "duh"ish. "But you bandaged it, and that should be fine until I get back to my base.

"No," Aadela insisted. "The bullet is still in you. I only cleaned the blood away from your wound before wrapping it," she explained. Mac looked down at his chest and realized that there was indeed no exit wound for the bullet. "If that bullet moves around much more, it may do serious damage," the woman continued.

Mac wanted to tell her that he'd be fine, that he'd make it back to base okay, but she was right. If the bullet moved while it was still inside him, it could get pushed further away from the opening, requiring a more extensive surgery to get it out, and he also ran the risk of it nicking an artery.

"Sit down," Aadela instructed, motioning to a chair.

"Hold on," Mac said, making his way to his pack and fishing around for his radio. Or what was left of his radio. The small device was in about half a dozen different pieces, and Mac let out a frustrated sigh. So much for calling for help.

"You wouldn't happen to have a radio, would you?" he asked.

"No." Aadela shook her head. "I am sorry."

"It's okay," Mac replied. "I think I can build one, I just need a few things to do that…" He began wandering around, trying to see if he could use anything to make a radio.

"Mr. MacGyver," Aadela said. When the blond looked back at her, she raised her eyebrows at him. "I need to get that bullet out now," she reminded him.

"Are you...can you do that?" Mac asked, slightly nervous about having the bullet removed by someone untrained.

"Most, if not all women in villages like these have learned how to perform small surgeries like this for when the men come back wounded. We do not have much money for doctors in the big cities, nor a way to get there in enough time. I can do it," she assured him.

MacGyver still felt a bit of skepticism, but he finally limped over to the chair Aadela was motioning for him to sit in. He swung one leg over the chair and sat down, leaning on the back rest while his hostess began removing her makeshift bandages from his shoulder. Mac couldn't stop the hiss that escaped his lips as the bandage pulled on some of the dried blood stuck to his skin, pulling at the wound. Aadela muttered an apology, but Mac simply shook his head.

"Not your fault," he assured her, though his voice was strained.

"Here," Aadela said after a few more moments. MacGyver turned his head towards her and saw her holding out a piece of wood. "Bite down," she instructed as he took it. Mac nodded in understanding and stuck the piece of wood between his teeth, clamping down on it as he prepared for the pain.

He heard Aadela say her nephew's name, and then the pounding of feet as the boy went somewhere. Soon Mac heard Atar coming back, and the sloshing sound informed Mac that the boy had been sent to get water.

The sharp smell of alcohol soon entered Mac's nose, and he briefly heard Aadela say, "This is going to hurt," before she poured something on his wound. The alcohol stung the wound, but it was a moment later, when Aadela began going after the bullet that the pain really hit the EOD specialist. Mac heard the wood splinter as he bit down with everything he had; he felt like the woman was digging around for hours, but it was really only a few minutes until she successfully extracted the bullet. She brought it around and showed it to the young blond, who stared at it blearily.

"It is whole," she informed him. "There are no broken pieces from what I can see."

"'S good," Mac muttered around the wood. He reached up and went to take the wood out of his mouth, but Aadela put a hand on his arm to stop him.

"Wait," she said. "The wound is deep, and now the bullet is gone, it won't stop bleeding on its own; it needs to be cauterized."

Aadela began speaking rapidly in Arabic at her nephew once again as Mac tried to get off the chair, insisting that he could hold out until he got back to base.

"Mr. MacGyver, please," Aadela said, switching back to English as she moved to stand in front of him. "Let me help you; I do not think you are a bad man, but you will be a very sick man if we do not get that wound cleaned and cauterized now." Her voice was firm, and though Mac wanted to argue with her, he couldn't. He thought about trying to find a way to create something to help with the procedure, but his mind was so fuzzy from the pain that he figured he'd probably do more harm than good if he tried, so he just sat back down meekly. "Here," Aadela said, handing a rag to Mac. "Press this against your wound as hard as you can while Atar and I gather the rest of the supplies."

MacGyver did as she instructed, though the wound was in an awkward place for him to reach, and it was painful as the blond tried to keep a steady pressure on the wound. It took a few minutes for Atar and his aunt to gather everything together that was needed, but finally the woman was ready.

"Wait, wait," Mac stopped Aadela before she could begin cauterizing his wound, pulling the wood out of his mouth. "I think it would be best if you restrained me," he explained as she looked at him with confusion. Her confusion turned to understanding, and Mac continued. "In my pack, there should be a roll of duct tape," he explained.

"Duck tape?" Aadela asked curiously.

"It's uh, silvery sticky stuff; thick tape," Mac explained. Aadela spoke to Atar in Arabic, and the teenager hurried over to the American's bag. He began rifling through it and finally brought out the roll of duct tape that MacGyver always kept on him, and Aadela got a look of understanding in her eyes.

"Ah, _sharit lasiq_ ," she translated for Mac. The blond nodded interestedly, committing the translation to memory. Atar brought the tape over to his aunt, and she proceeded to wrap a layer around Mac's wrists to make sure that he didn't jerk away and injure himself or anyone else when the hot metal touched his skin. When the American was secure, Aadela stood in front of him.

"Are you ready?" she asked, her eyes wide and sympathetic. Mac took in a deep breath and responded,

"No, but you're right. This can't wait."

Aadela nodded at the blond's permission, and she walked behind him again, but not before offering another piece of wood to her patient once more. Mac opened his mouth and bit down on the wood once again, and he braced himself for the pain he knew was coming.

The only thing that seemed to last longer than any pain Mac had endured so far was the waiting, the anticipation for the pain that he knew was coming; it felt like an eternity before he finally heard Aadela walk over, and he could smell the scent of hot metal behind him. The woman didn't give him a warning before letting the metal descend, which in hindsight, Mac was actually somewhat grateful for. However, the moment the metal touched his skin, the only thing going through the American's head was a dizzying array of colors; the pain was so much that after a few seconds, the blond's head drooped forward on the chair's back, and he was once again unconscious.

Aadela bit her lip as she watched the young American slump forward, but she didn't stop applying the heat until she was sure the wound was closed. As soon as she was finished though, she motioned for her nephew to help her clean around the wound, and then they moved their new houseguest back onto the bed. As he was laid down, the older woman reached out and removed the wood from MacGyver's mouth, noticing that it had been bitten nearly in three pieces. She felt terrible for the pain she'd just put the young man through, but she kept assuring herself that it had to be done.

Once she made sure the young man was taken care of, she and her nephew went about the house, doing their everyday chores while they waited for the newcomer to wake up once more.

 _0-0-0_

 _Present Time_

" _That's_ where you learned the Arabic word for duct tape?" Jack asked somewhat incredulously. "Why am I surprised?"

"What?" Mac held his hands out in an innocent gesture. "You never know when you're going to be out of country and in need of good old duct tape! It's saved my life more times than I can count," he added.

"Not as many times as me," Jack muttered under his breath, pretending to pout. Mac chuckled and rolled his eyes at his partner's dramatic expression.

"You're right, you've definitely saved me more times than duct tape, at least while we've worked together," Mac agreed, stoking his partner's ego slightly. Jack looked a little offended at the last part of Mac's sentence, but then Mac reminded him, "I have been using duct tape to get both in _and_ out of trouble since I was two."

"Yeah, yeah, okay," Jack said, waving off his partner's response, though Mac knew Jack wasn't actually mad or upset. "So then what? The bomber dude caught up with you?"

"Yeah," Mac confirmed. "Ak Toba was the only town close to that stream Atar found me at, which is where I'm assuming he figured I'd go, so he just followed his instincts and found the village."

"Okay, that's something else," Jack interjected. "I don't even know who _he_ is."

"His name is Didar Habib," Mac answered. "He was a small-time terrorist, mainly focusing on small things like car bombs and destroying foot bridges, but he was gearing up to hit a large city. That was what the stuff I found and destroyed was for. After we caught him, he was taken to an American prison in Afghanistan, but apparently he managed to get away," Mac added in a slightly darker tone, one that Jack wasn't used to hearing.

"Whoa, you caught him? Spoiler alert," Jack teased, trying to lighten his partner's mood even just a little bit.

"Jack, my entire being here is a spoiler alert, seeing as how if he'd caught me, he would have killed me," Mac pointed out, though he knew that his partner was simply trying to lighten the mood somewhat, and Mac appreciated it. "Anyway, yeah. I woke up and no one was around, so I decided to get up and see what I could find."

 _ **Okay, what are your thoughts?**_


	4. Chapter 4

_Four Years Ago_

Once again, MacGyver woke up after passing out due to his injuries, though this time when he woke up, he didn't hear anyone around him. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the sun outside was at what looked like high noon, or right after, and Mac realized just how long he'd been out. Pena was going to be livid at the young man for not having made contact or returned to base, but Mac figured that he would be able to explain his way out of too harsh a punishment.

Mac looked around the house and confirmed that there was no one in the small house with him, but he noticed that his arm had been secured in a sling to prevent him from moving his shoulder. The young man began to sit up slowly, so as to avoid jostling any wounds; his shoulder throbbed, but it wasn't nearly as painful as it had been when the bullet was still inside and the wound was open, exposed to sand, dust, and everything in the air.

When he was finally in an upright position, MacGyver began to get up off the bed, testing his weight on his injured ankle. He was pleased to find that his ankle could take a lot more of his weight than it had the night before, though it was still obviously injured. When he was finally back on his feet, he took a few experimental steps. He still had a limp, but the pain was minimal compared to what it had been before, and Mac knew that he'd be able to function just fine. Finally, Mac began to try and figure out where his hostess and her nephew had gone.

Voices sounded from what Mac figured was the backyard of the property, so he stepped out the door and wandered around to the back, where he found Aadela and Atar with their backs to him, taking care of their animals. A few chickens ran around MacGyver's feet, clucking at each other, and Mac tried to do his best not to trip over the animals, though it was difficult because they kept trying to get under his feet as he walked.

Aadela must have heard his footsteps, because she turned her head and looked directly at him, a warm smile spreading across her face. "You are awake," she observed as she stood up, holding a pail of goat milk.

"I am," Mac agreed.

Aadela turned to her nephew and spoke to him in Arabic, holding the pail out to him. The boy took it obediently and went back towards the house with his pail. Aadela turned back to her houseguest after Atar relieved her of the pail. "How are you feeling?" she asked as she brushed her hands across her clothes, drying them off.

"Better," Mac replied. It was true; he still felt like he'd been hit by a vehicle, but now it hurt more like he'd been hit by a regular sized car instead of feeling like he'd been crushed by an eighteen-wheeler semi.

"I am glad." Aadela smiled at MacGyver, who returned the expression, but before they could continue their conversation, a cry from the house drew their attention. They both looked over and saw Atar running at them, no longer carrying the pail of milk. Aadela hurried over and met him halfway, grabbing her nephew as they met. She cupped his face in her hands as she spoke to him, trying to figure out what was wrong. The boy babbled, but MacGyver didn't know any more Arabic than he had the night before, so he understood nothing of what the boy was saying. Atar kept gesturing back towards the house though, so Mac decided to go see what had gotten the boy so worked up.

MacGyver didn't even have to go inside the house to figure out why Atar was so freaked out. The blond heard screams and shouts, so when he reached the actual structure, he didn't go inside; he just inched along the side of the building until he could see around the corner. The other village members were screaming and running away as a group of men ransacked all the houses in the village. Another man stood back, watching, and Mac knew without a doubt that he was the man in charge. Mac also knew exactly what, or _who_ the invaders were looking for: him.

The blond turned around, coming face to face with Aadela. Her expression was one of panic and fear; she obviously knew what the intruders were there for as well, and for a moment, MacGyver wondered if she was going to yell and draw attention to him. However, before Mac could do anything, the woman lunged forward and grabbed Mac by his good arm and pulled him out of sight, back into the house. Atar was already inside, watching the ongoing events through the slit in the curtains.

"Who are those men?" Aadela asked MacGyver. Her eyes were hard, but Mac could still see the fear underneath her tough expression, and he wished he could tell her better news.

"I don't know," he admitted. "It's the truth. I was sent on a mission by the military, and I'm pretty sure that this is the man that mission was against." The two of them stared at each other for a moment, the sound of the raid still going on outside. "I can help you," Mac continued, knowing he had to do something to get the men away from the village and the small family who rescued him.

"How?"

"I need two things. First, I need to call for backup."

"Your radio is broken," Aadela reminded him.

"I know, but I think you have some things here that can help me fix that, at least well enough to get a message out to my team."

"Alright," Aadela finally agreed after a moment of consideration, still unsure, but willing to help the strange American her nephew had brought in. "What is the second thing?"

Mac felt the same familiar feeling that he got whenever he was about to do something crazy rise up in his chest, but he felt more confident about this plan than he did about the majority of the other crazy schemes he'd come up with. "Do you have any cayenne pepper and vinegar?"

 _0-0-0_

 _Present Time_

MacGyver's story was once again interrupted, this time by a flight attendant bringing the meals they'd ordered. Mac hadn't realized how hungry he was until he smelled the food, and his stomach reminded him it had been hours since he'd eaten last; his worry over Atar had sort of dominated everything else.

While Mac and Jack were eating, Riley made her way up to their seats, stealing a bit of Jack's food, against his protests. After chewing and swallowing the pilfered food, she asked, "So do we have a gameplan for when we touch down?"

Mac checked his watch. "We've still got a good chunk of time before the plane lands, and once we do touch down, it'll have been twenty-seven hours since the video was sent out. That gives us nine hours to find Atar."

"Atar?" Riley asked. Mac had forgotten that she hadn't been there for the story he'd been telling Jack, so he gave her the watered down version to catch her up. "Got it," she said. "So the person that this Habib has is Atar, the kid who rescued you after you'd been shot?"

"Right," Mac confirmed.

"What about Aadela?"

Mac had been having the same thoughts; there hadn't been any mention of the woman in Habib's video, and the blond was hoping and praying that Atar's aunt hadn't been harmed. "I don't know," he confessed. Jack could see his partner's brain whirring, and he guessed what he was thinking about.

"Hey," the older agent said, clapping a hand on the blond's shoulder. "It'll be good; we'll find Aadela and we'll get Atar back safe and sound," he promised. MacGyver nodded, but Jack could tell that his assurances hadn't stopped his partner's worrying in the slightest.

"Anyway," Mac continued, ignoring past the sympathetic looks his friends were giving him. "It's about a four hour drive from the airport to Ak Toba. Once we reach the village, we'll only have about five hours to come up with and execute a plan, give or take a few minutes."

"You think Habib is gonna be that punctual with his deadline?" Jack asked. Mac gave his partner a level stare.

"The man works with bombs; timing is kinda critical in that line of work," the blond pointed out.

"Fair enough," Jack muttered, picking up his sandwich and taking a huge bite out of it. "So whaddya wanna do when we get to October?"

"Octo-it's Ak Toba, Jack," Mac corrected, rolling his eyes at his partner's mispronunciation. _Only Jack Dalton,_ Mac thought to himself in amusement.

"Eh, potato potahto." Jack waved his hand dismissively, though he could see the humorous look in his partner's eyes. "Do we have a plan?"

"In the video, Habib said to come to the place where I ruined his life. I can only assume that means the building where I burned all the explosive materials."

"So we go there, we find out where he's keeping Atar and get the kid out, kicking some serious bad guy butt while we're there," Jack proposed.

"I don't know if it's going to be that simple, Jack," MacGyver argued. "Believe me, I want it to be, but something just isn't sitting right with me about this. He's too confident."

"Which makes it perfect for us," Jack argued. "When bad guys get cocky, they get sloppy, and when they get sloppy, they're just too easy to take down!"

"I didn't have a lot of interactions with this guy," Mac admitted. "It's possible that he could just be overconfident and easy to take down, but I'd still rather have some sort of plan in place."

"Okay," Jack agreed. "Riley here can get us access to the cameras on the compound, can't you, Ri?"

"Yeah, it shouldn't be too hard," the hacker confirmed.

"Perfect. See, Riley can get us eyes and ears in there, and then it's just a matter of getting in and getting the kid out. Easy peasy. Besides, if things go wrong, you're the best improviser I know," Jack added. "If I was in the kid's shoes, there wouldn't be anyone else I'd rather have coming for me." The older agent's voice was sincere, and Mac smiled gratefully at his partner. His stomach rumbled again, and Mac finally decided to take a bite of his food. There was a vacant seat next to Jack, so Riley plopped herself down next to the other two agents, deciding to pass the duration of their flight with her friends.

Once they were finished eating and the flight attendant had taken their trash away, Jack prodded Mac in the arm. "So you were telling us how you were about to beat Habib and his men back when they were invading the village?"

"Right. So I was able to build a radio with some things I found around the house, and once that was done, I tried to make something to let the the newcomers know that they were unwelcome, but I wasn't fast enough."

 _ **Hey guys! I'm sorry it took a few extra days to get this chapter up, and I'm sorry that it was a shorter chapter this time! The start of the new year has been kinda crazy, but I'm good now, meaning hopefully chapters should be coming every three-ish days now! :D**_

 _ **Anyway, what did you guys think? There were some parts of the chapter that I just didn't know what to do with, so if you guys can think of ways to edit the rough parts, let me know :) Once again, I welcome constructive criticism, but flames are ignored.**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**Wooooo! A long chapter!**_

 _ **As usual, I own nothing but my original characters, who I am very proud of :D**_

 _Four Years Ago_

"How did you do that?" Aadela asked as she looked at the radio Mac had jerry-rigged. He'd taken one of her pans, a few rubber bands, some bobby pins, a spring, along with his own broken radio pieces and turned it into a semi-functioning radio.

"I like building things," MacGyver replied, used to that question by now. He twisted one of the knobs a few times, trying to get the clearest signal. He finally reached the best channel he could, though it was still littered with static. "Home Base, this is Section 64, do you copy?" Static filled the air as Mac waited for a response; he waited for a little less than fifteen seconds before trying again. "This is Section 64, requesting back up. Home Base, do you copy?"

Aadela had positioned herself by the window to keep a lookout for the men ransacking the village, and she turned to MacGyver. "They are getting closer," she informed him. Her voice was steady, but Mac could see the fear in her eyes. He decided to try the radio one last time, but then he knew he had to get going if he wanted to make something to defend themselves with.

"Home Base, if you copy, this is MacGyver, requesting backup as soon as possible. I'm in the village of Ak Toba; if anyone is receiving, please respond."

Static filled the air once more, and Mac rubbed his forehead, trying not to notice the scared faces of the small family that had saved him. The American began to get up slowly; while his ankle was feeling better, it still balked at taking its full share of his weight. Before Mac got very far though, there was a break in the radio static as someone responded.

"Mac, is that you?" It was Pena's voice, and Mac let out a huge breath in relief. He grabbed the radio and answered,

"This is MacGyver," he confirmed.

"Kid, where have you been?" Pena asked. His voice sounded stern, but Mac knew that underneath all the hard exterior, there was a gentle and caring father-to-be.

"Sorry sir, had a bit of trouble getting clear; now I'm pinned down in a village called Ak Toba. It's near the compound, and the men from last night are here looking for me. I'm being helped by a family, but I could use some backup, sir."

"Hold tight son, I think I know the place; backup'll be there as soon as possible."

There were screams outside, a gunshot, and a man yelling; Mac ducked his head instinctively, using his good arm to reach out a pull Atar to the ground. "Soon would be good, sir," Mac responded as he struggled to his feet. "Sooner, even, if it's possible!"

Pena said something else, but Mac was too preoccupied with gathering the materials he needed to fight back to respond, or even fully comprehend what his CO said. He hurried over to Aadela, looking outside the window; what he saw made his stomach plumet.

The villagers were being herded together while the man in charge paced in front of them, holding a gun at his side. Mac turned to Aadela. "I need a container; a plastic bottle, if you have one?"

Aadela nodded. "Under the sink," she responded, gesturing in the direction of the appliance.

"Great," Mac replied. He went into the kitchen and grabbed the vinegar and cayenne pepper he'd set on the table earlier, as well as what he assumed and hoped was baking soda. Once he had those materials, he turned to Aadela and Atar. "You need to go out back," he instructed.

"What?"

"Go hide out back," he repeated. "Get under the hay near the goats, and don't make a sound."

"Mr. MacGyver, we aren't leav-"

"If they catch you harboring me, they're going to kill you without hesitating," Mac interrupted. "Please," he added when he saw that Aadela still wanted to argue. After another moment of hesitation, Aadela finally nodded, though it was reluctantly. She grabbed her nephew and herded him towards the back door, though the teen obviously didn't want to go either. He kept turning back towards Mac, but his aunt caught him each time and stopped him, reprimanding him quietly in their native tongue as she finally got him out the door.

Once they were outside, Mac breathed a sigh of relief as he reached under the sink and got the plastic bottle out. He began pouring the vinegar and cayenne pepper inside, watching as the red ground pepper mixed in with the foul-smelling liquid. He filled the bottle until it was about three-quarters of the way full, and then all that was left to add was the baking soda. He grabbed a piece of paper from the floor and created a funnel so that the powder wouldn't spill all over the floor, and then he poured the white substance into the plastic bottle.

The contents began to bubble instantly, and Mac screwed the lid back on before it could overflow. Doing things one-handed was a little difficult, seeing as how his injured arm was still in a sling, but Mac made do; making do with what he had was one of the things he was best at, after all. The blond pulled out his Swiss Army knife from his pocket and placed it on the ground. To keep it steady so that he could pull out the blade he needed, Mac put his knee on one end of the knife and grabbed the circular shape of the corkscrew. He pulled out the tool, but before he could figure out the best way to disperse it on the terrorists outside, the front door was kicked in, and four men swarmed inside.

 _Guess there's that decision made,_ Mac thought to himself. Quickly, the American stabbed the corkscrew into the side of the plastic bottle and aimed the now-spewing bottle at the intruders, hitting two of them square in the face. Those two dropped their weapons and clawed at their eyes, trying to get the burning cayenne pepper out, but it was a futile effort. The other two terrorists moved towards Mac with greater caution now, though Mac could tell that they weren't actually scared of him.

One of them feinted for the blond's side, making Mac turn and squeeze the plastic bottle, shooting the contents of the bottle towards… empty space? The terrorist knew that would be Mac's reaction, so he'd ducked out of the way as soon as he made his move, and while the blond was turned slightly away, the last terrorist jumped and hit Mac in his injured shoulder. MacGyver let out a cry and dropped the bottle, his vision going slightly blurry. Though he was still in pain, Mac used his one good hand to try and fight back. He wasn't a match for the terrorists though, especially injured and with one of his arms in a sling.

The fight didn't take long, and the men finally dragged Mac outside the house, though the blond American was fighting them the whole way, at least as best as he could. Through his hazy vision Mac could see that he was getting taken to where the rest of the village was corralled, and the only thought going through his head was how he hoped that Aadela and Atar would remain uncaptured.

The men grunted as they hauled the American forward, but finally they threw him down at the feet of the man in charge, thankfully landing on his uninjured shoulder, though it didn't lessen the pounding in his head any. While he was trying to fight back, one of the men had managed to get in a good shot to his jaw and the side of his temple, so both of those were now throbbing, and being tossed around wasn't really doing wonders for his pain. Even with his arm in the sling, Mac kept his injured arm as close to his side as he could to restrict movement.

Something was said in Arabic above Mac's head, and the blond saw the man in charge looking down at him. The American tried to roll around to get to his feet, but the click of a gun made him pause.

"My men here say that you are the man who sabotaged our building last night," the man above Mac said. "I'm guessing you're U.S. military, but I need to know more. What is your name, what division are you with, and how many other people know about me?"

When MacGyver simply stared at the man in contempt and didn't say anything in response, a boot appeared out of nowhere and planted itself firmly in the American's stomach, knocking him onto his back and making him grunt in pain. Once Mac was on his back, now using his uninjured arm to curl around his abdomen, another boot was placed against Mac's throat. A very slight amount of pressure was applied, enough to let Mac know that the man wasn't afraid to do something worse, but not hard enough that the blond wouldn't be able to speak and give up the information they were seeking.

"Maybe you didn't hear me. What is your name, what division of the military are you with, and who else knows about me?"

When MacGyver once again refused to answer, more pressure was applied to the blond's throat.

"If you want me to talk, crushing my windpipe might not be the best way to go about it," Mac pointed out hoarsely.

"Ah, he _can_ speak," the man announced. "That is good to know. Now, how about answering my questions?"

MacGyver stared defiantly at the man above him, even though one of his eyes had a bit of blood from a cut on his forehead dripping into it.

"Let's try this again," the man said, not bothering to hide his annoyance. He raised his gun and pointed it at the crowd, drawing cries of alarm from the village people. "If you don't answer my questions in the next thirty seconds, I shoot someone. If your conscience lets you live with that one life taken, and you still refuse to answer my questions, I will tell my men that they may fire on will at anyone they please."

Mac's eyes went wide at the threat, but before he could do or say anything, one of the terrorists called out and got the man's attention. "Habib, wajadna hdha fi haqibatih!"

The blond had no idea what they were saying, but he was able to guess when he saw one of the men walking forward with his ID that he had stowed away in his pack. The man in charge, Habib, accepted the ID and looked at it with interest.

"Angus MacGyver," he greeted slowly. "An EOD specialist for the United States Military. It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. MacGyver." Habib removed his boot from Mac's throat, but before Mac could get up and try to fight, Habib moved his gun so that it was pointing at Mac's face instead of the crowd of villagers. Habib stared at Mac for a moment before speaking to his men.

"Alhusul ealayh," he ordered. MacGyver wasn't sure what the phrase meant, but he was able to piece it together pretty quickly when the men bent down and grabbed him, hauling him upright until he was on his knees. The terrorists pulled his good arm straight out, then reached into the makeshift sling and yanked his injured arm out of the supportive material and held that arm out as well. The American had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop from groaning as his injured shoulder was stretched out.

"I would ask you again how many people know about me, but the more I think about it, the less I really care. So, Mr. MacGyver, I think it's time that our brief relationship should come to an end."

Mac tried pulling out of the men's grasps, but he was unable to move. He saw the gun level at his head and he cast his eyes around, trying to the very last second to find some way out of his predicament. Just when Mac felt that Habib was about to pull the trigger, someone behind them shouted.

Habib paused in surprise, and MacGyver glanced behind them, his stomach plummeting even further when he saw Atar running towards them, Aadela close behind as she tried to catch her nephew. Habib laughed at the approaching teenager, and the terrorist glanced away to laugh with his comrades, not noticing how close Atar actually was. The teenager bowled into the older man, making Habib grunt in surprise and drop his gun.

MacGyver took advantage of the distraction and pulled his good arm as hard as he could, throwing the man holding that arm off-balance. Once that arm was freed, Mac reached over and jabbed the other man holding him in the throat, freeing his injured arm as well. Once both of his arms were free, Mac was abe to get to his feet, though he had to duck to avoid a punch aimed for his face almost as soon as he was up. Mac felt someone coming behind him, and he jerked his elbow backwards, hearing a rather satisfying _crunch_ as his bony elbow made contact with someone's nose.

"Stop!" Habib roared as the young American began fighting with the terrorists. MacGyver glanced over at Habib and his blood ran cold. The man was holding Atar against him, a gun at his head. "One more move and the boy dies," Habib threatened.

"No!" Aadela tried to run forward, but Mac reached out and grabbed her before she could get herself or her nephew shot.

"Stop," Mac muttered in her ear, trying to calm the frantic woman's cries. His injured shoulder made it difficult to hold onto her while she struggled, but his sheer will to keep her alive won out, and he pushed through the pain.

"A trade," Habib called out from where he stood. "You come with us quietly, and I let the boy go. I let this whole village go," he offered. MacGyver stared at the terrorist; he didn't trust the man for an instant, but the desperate look in Aadela's eyes, and the scared look leaking through Atar's brave expression made MacGyver nod and take a step forward. Aadela made a small noise of protest, but Mac ignored her.

"Let him go," he called out to the terrorist as he moved forward. Habib shook his head.

"You surrender to my men first," he countered. "Once you are secure with us, then the boy goes free."

MacGyver didn't trust Habib further than he could throw him, but at the moment, complying with his demands seemed like the best way to keep Atar safe. The blond began walking forward until he passed the first of Habib's men, and then the terrorists reached out and grabbed him roughly, yanking him towards them.

They began securing his wrists together, and once they were done, they pushed him towards the truck they'd come in. Mac resisted though, digging his heels into the ground. "You've got me, let him go," the blond insisted as he noticed that Habib still held the teenager with a gun pointed to his head.

Habib looked thoughtful for a moment, though Mac could tell the man had clearly already made up his mind.

"Alhusul ealaa alsabii fi alshshahina," he said, pushing the boy into the arms of one of his men. Aadela began yelling and running forward, and though he didn't speak Arabic, Mac knew what Habib must have said.

"We had a deal," he growled as he struggled against the men holding him, ignoring the pain in his shoulder and ribs.

"You are a fool," Habib scoffed. No further explanation was given; the only other thing Habib did was turn to his men to give them more instructions. "Put them both on the truck," he said to his men, this time in English. MacGyver heard Aadela crying out for her nephew, but the terrorists shouted at her, aiming their guns at her and preventing her from running forward.

Mac continued trying to resist their attempts to move him, trying to get away so he could help Atar, but one of Habib's men placed a well-aimed punch to the American's injured shoulder. The pain was so intense that MacGyver fell to his knees with a groan of pain, and his captors laughed cruelly. They hoisted the young man to his feet and pushed him forward, barely bothering to keep him upright when he tripped over a hole in the ground.

Mac looked up to see that Atar was close to the truck, struggling in his own captor's grasp. For a moment, Mac felt that he and Atar would actually be taken away, but then he heard a rumbling. He wondered for a moment if it was in his head, but when he looked around it seemed that others heard it too, because Habib and his men stopped laughing and talking, straining their ears to listen for the sound. Mac felt the ground under his feet vibrating, and he suddenly realized what it was. His heart leapt in his chest, but he knew that once Habib realized what the rumbling was, the rest of the village was in danger. The blond turned to look at Aadela and mouthed "Run!" at her.

The woman looked confused, but it was at that moment that Habib must have realized what the sound was. He began yelling at his men, and MacGyver took advantage of the sudden chaos to yell, "Run!" at Aadela before jerking his elbow into the stomach of one of the men holding him. When that man doubled over with a wheeze, Mac turned to the other man and drove his knee into his captor's abdomen. When that man leaned over as well, Mac's well-aimed knee greeted the man's nose and knocked him to the ground. The first guard Mac incapacitated began to straighten back up, but Mac drove his elbow into the back of the man's neck, making sure that both of Mac's guards were out for the count.

Once his guards were taken care of, MacGyver ran towards Atar, ignoring the pain in his ankle. The American heard gunshots closer than before, and he took a running leap, crashing into the men holding the teenager, sending everyone involved tumbling to the ground. MacGyver grabbed Atar and rolled away from the terrorists with the young man in his grasp, coming to a stop after a few seconds of rolling.

When Mac raised his head, he saw that Pena had definitely brought backup; American soldiers were running everywhere, securing all the terrorists they could. Gunshots were still ringing about though, so Mac made sure to keep Atar's head covered as the two of them got to their feet and ran for the nearest military truck. They had almost reached it when there was a feral yell from the side, but Mac didn't have time to react before someone bowled into him, knocking Atar away and throwing Mac to the ground.

The back of MacGyver's head hit the ground and left him seeing stars, but his vision was clear enough to see that it was Habib on top of him. Mac's shoulder was screaming in agony as the combined weight of both MacGyver and Habib pressed down on the injured limb, pushing it into the ground. Mac didn't have time to focus on his shoulder though, because the terrorist's grabbing hands found Mac's throat and began to squeeze before the blond could fight back. MacGyver refused to go down without a fight though.

Though his hands were still tied together, Mac brought his bound arms up in between Habib's, and jabbed up with as much force as he could. The American's aim was true; Habib howled as Mac's thumb found his eye, and the blond's throat was released as the terrorist fell back, clutching at his wounded eye.

MacGyver heard shouting, and several military men suddenly appeared and grabbed Habib's shoulders, hauling him to his feet and away from the young man he'd been trying to kill. With his throat finally released, Mac drew in a deep breath, coughing slightly as he tried to take in too much air at once. Pena appeared above his head and held out a hand, which MacGyver accepted gratefully. The blond was pulled to his feet, though he had to switch where his weight was placed, because his ankle had begun throbbing rather painfully again.

"You alright, kid?" Pena asked. Mac looked around at the small group of terrorists being rounded up, and then he saw that it looked like none of the villagers had been harmed; Mac turned his attention back to his CO, and he nodded.

"Yeah," he panted as he massaged his throat. "I think I am."

 _ **Obviously this isn't the end of the story, so don't worry. This just seemed like the best place to end the chapter :)**_

 _ **Let me know what you think of the chapter!**_

 _ **Here are the translations: (From google translate)**_

 _ **habib, wajadna hdha fi haqibatih-Habib, we found this in his bag**_

 _ **alhusul ealayh—get him up**_

 _ **alhusul ealaa alsabii fi alshshahina—get the boy in the truck**_


	6. Chapter 6

**_Man, this is turning out to be one of my longer stories. Probably because it's got the backstory woven into it, but still *shrugs*_**

 ** _Btw, what do you guys think of the backstory? A lot of you have already pointed it out in your reviews, but yes, the backstory is based off an original MacGyver episode from season 1, called 'To Be a Man.' It's a really good episode, go check it out if you can! :D_**

 ** _Also, can I say that I'm so glad you guys all like Aadela and Atar so much? I've missed writing OCs...hmmm...maybe one of these days I'll have to write a story with Aadela, Atar, and Anja! *eyebrow waggle* Huh...I've got a thing for names that start with 'A' apparently... XD_**

 ** _Anyway. Sorry for the rambling AN, enjoy the chapter! :D_**

 _Present Time_

"Ma'am, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to return to your seat," the flight attendant said as she walked past them. "We're coming into our final descent, and all passengers must be in their assigned seats to ensure that everyone collects their luggage in an appropriate and timely manner."

"Oh, well...I don't have any luggage, so is it okay if I stay here?" Riley asked.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," the flight attendant replied, though she didn't really sound all that sorry. "I need you to return to your seat."

"See, the thing is, this is my uncle," Riley said, placing a hand on Jack's arm. "He uh...he can get a little frazzled sometimes if he isn't around people he knows at all times," she explained. She leaned over Jack to whisper to the flight attendant, "He's not really all there, if I'm being honest. Me and my cousin here have to stick with him at all times, otherwise he gets confused and starts causing a ruckus."

Jack looked extremely offended at the statement and went to argue, but Riley gently squeezed his bicep where her arm was still placed, and the Delta man grudgingly stayed silent.

The flight attendant looked confused and was about to answer, but one of her fellow flight attendants called out to her to come help at the back of the plane. The woman looked at Riley for another minute while the hacker smiled her most charming smile, and finally the flight attendant gave up.

"Fine," she said before walking to the back of the plane to see what her coworker needed. Once she was out of hearing, Jack turned to Riley in annoyance.

"Really?" he asked. "That's the best you could come up with? I'm crazy and need twenty-four hour surveillance?"

"I didn't say that," Riley defended, though her impish grin suggested that it was exactly what she had meant. Jack grumbled a bit at the girl, but Riley interrupted him as she spoke to Mac. "So was that the end of the story?" she asked. The blond shrugged.

"Pretty much," he replied. "Pena and the team showed up, and they arrested Habib on charges of terrorism. I thought he was secured, but apparently he wasn't," Mac added, the dark tone of voice coming back slightly.

"What happened to Atar and his aunt?" Jack asked.

"We said goodbye," Mac stated simply.

 _0-0-0_

 _Four Years Ago_

"Atar!" Aadela ran forward, grabbing her nephew in one of the biggest hugs MacGyver had seen, nearly squeezing the life out of him, if the look in Atar's eyes meant anything. Aadela muttered to the young boy in Arabic as the ties around his wrists were cut; once his hands were free, he returned the embrace from his aunt, though it was only for a few seconds. He pulled away after a moment and turned to face MacGyver.

"You saved me," Atar stated. The blond's own bonds had just been cut, and he shrugged as he massaged the circulation back into his wrists.

"You saved me first," Mac replied. "I would have been caught and killed last night if it weren't for you."

"Thank you," Aadela said, releasing her nephew only long enough for her to give MacGyver a hug and a kiss on his cheek before she grabbed Atar again. Mac got the feeling that if it were possible, the woman would never let go of her nephew again.

"Mac," one of the other army men yelled from their trucks. "C'mon man, we gotta go!"

MacGyver looked over to the soldier and nodded, letting him know he was coming, then he turned back to Aadela. "Gotta go," he said. "You guys take care of yourselves," he added with a smile.

"Will we see you again?" Atar asked, his eyes wide. Mac stared at the young boy.

"Maybe," he finally replied, though he honestly doubted that they _would_ ever see each other again. "If I ever get the chance to stop by, I will, how's that?" he finally offered. Atar grinned and nodded enthusiastically, and when MacGyver made eye contact with Aadela, she smiled gratefully at him. She knew that the chances of them seeing each other again were slim, but she appreciated the American not dashing her nephew's hopes.

"Mac!" the man from the truck called out again. MacGyver gave Aadela and Atar one last hug before turning and limping towards the truck, accepting the hands that were offered to help him get back in. As the truck drove away, Mac turned and looked out the back at the village, waving with his good hand at the two figures still standing there, and he watched as they waved back. As they drove away, Mac actually felt a small pang of sadness; he hadn't grown especially close to the family in the fourteen or so hours that he'd spent with them, but he felt like they were a family he'd have liked to have gotten to know better, and now he realized he'd probably never have that chance.

 _0-0-0_

 _Present Time_

"That was the last I'd heard from them," Mac finished, sitting back in his seat and looking at his hands. "To be honest, I'd actually let them slip to the back of my mind once I got back to the States, and then with everything that's happened in the past two years alone, I honestly forgot about them, but it seems like Habib didn't have a hard time remembering them at all."

Jack knew exactly what his partner was thinking when he looked at the kids face, and he shook his head. "We're gonna get him back, Mac," the older man assured his friend. "We're gonna find Atar, get him back home to his aunt safely, and put Habib back behind bars again. It's what we do," he added in what was supposed to be a heroic Texan drawl.

MacGyver nodded, though he was still obviously beating himself up about putting the family in danger once again. Jack was going to keep talking, but it was at that moment that the pilot came onto the intercom.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at our destination. Please, make sure that you remove your carry-on luggage in a orderly manner. On behalf of our entire crew, thank you for flying with us, and we hope that you choose us again next time you decide to grace the skies with your presence."

The message was repeated in Arabic as the plane taxied to a stop on the runway, and all the passengers got up to remove their luggage from the overhead bins. Since the three Phoenix agents had no luggage, they were some of the first to get off the plane.

They made their way through the airport, then outside until they found a car rental agency. Once they found and rented a Jeep, the three of them took off, following the GPS on Jack's phone to the village of Ak Toba.

 _0-0-0_

Mac was staring out at the passing scenery, coming up with a plan to get Atar back from Habib, and he almost didn't notice they were passing a familiar-looking stream until Jack drove over a bridge that had been built. The bumpiness of the bridge knocked Mac out of his daze, and he looked ahead. In the distance, he could see the outline of their destination, and suddenly his stomach felt like it had a dozen or so heavy rocks piled inside of him; if Aadela was still in the village, Mac didn't know how he'd be able to face her, knowing that it was because of him that her nephew had been taken.

Four hours after their plane touched down and the three agents rented their car, they arrived in the village where MacGyver had been brought after being shot, but it wasn't the same village. Many of the houses had been burned down, and if they weren't completely destroyed, they were pretty darn close. Jack pulled the jeep to a stop just a few hundred feet away from the closest house, and he, Mac, and Riley got out and began walking.

Many of the villagers were outside cleaning up rubble, and they hardly paid the three newcomers any mind. A few of them did a double take as they thought they recognized Mac, but most of the villagers had only seen the American for a few minutes the first time he'd come to their village, and they couldn't remember where they knew the blond from.

"This way," Mac said quietly, turning to the right and heading towards a house closer to the edge of the village. While this house was the most out of the way, it looked like it was the most damaged out of all the houses in the village, and the sinking feeling that had been plaguing MacGyver since he saw the video of Atar got worse. The blond picked up the pace, almost jogging over to Aadela's house, barely hearing Jack and Riley asking him what was wrong.

"Aadela?" Mac called out as he reached the house. The front door had been kicked in, so MacGyver stepped through, dreading the thought of what might be inside. Thankfully when he looked around, Mac saw no sign of a body, and his hopes began to rise slightly.

While Riley and Jack were standing in the doorway watching their friend inspect the house, neither of them noticed the figure creeping up behind them, holding a metal pail in her hands until she began beating Jack with it. The figure hit Jack over the back first, giving the Delta soldier enough chance to duck and cover his head before the stranger could bash his skull in, but the stranger had the element of surprise. As she continued to deliver blow after blow against Jack's back, she started yelling.

"Who are you? What do you want? Haven't you taken enough? Get out of my house! Get out!"

Mac heard the commotion behind him and turned around, and when he heard the voice and saw who was beating his friend, a relieved smile broke across his face. "Aadela," he said, rushing past Jack and grabbing the Afghan woman's hands. She struggled in Mac's grip, trying to get away, and Mac tried talking to her again. "Aadela, stop. It's me, MacGyver."

At that, all struggles ceased and the woman looked up, tears welling up in her eyes as she indeed recognized the blond American standing in front of her. "MacGyver?" she asked, not sure if she believed it. When Mac smiled caringly and nodded his head, Aadela couldn't stop the tears that escaped her eyes, and she collapsed against the young man, her whole body trembling as she sobbed.

 _0-0-0_

"What happened?" MacGyver asked as Aadela and the Americans stood in the charred and gutted remains of her home.

"They came at night," Aadela began. "I was inside cooking dinner, while Atar had gone out to feed the animals their supper. He had only been gone a few minutes when I heard screaming from the neighbors. I ran outside, and Atar was coming back for me, but someone jumped out and hit him over the head. When they picked him up, I tried to grab him but they hit me too," she explained, gesturing to an ugly bruise on her cheek.

Mac felt his anger rise when he saw the injury, but he didn't say anything as Aadela continued her story. "By the time I woke up, they had Atar in their car and were driving away. Before they left though, the men had gone through the village and set fire to some of the houses, including mine. We tried to stop the fires, but it destroyed most of the homes before we finally got them put out. I tried chasing after the men who had taken Atar, but they um...how do you say… _fasabaq?_ Went faster?"

"Outran?" MacGyver supplied. Aadela nodded.

"Yes, they outran me easily. I followed them for as long as I could, but I finally had to come back and save what I could, which wasn't much." She looked around her ruined house with a sad look on her face. Mac recognized the look; it was an expression people had when they knew they'd lost everything. He'd seen it on more people than he wanted to admit, but he steeled himself. He was _not_ going to let Aadela lose her nephew; he was too late to save her house from burning, but he wasn't going to rest until Atar was back home safely.

"Aadela," he said, placing his hand over hers. "I am going to get Atar back. These are my friends, Jack and Riley, and they're going to help me."

Aadela looked between the three of them, a small glimmer of hope beginning to shine on her face. "How can I help?" she asked.

"Do you have a map of the surrounding area?" Mac asked. Aadela shook her head.

"The only one I had burned in the fire; it's the same with the others in the village," she added, anticipating the American's next question. "I could come with you, though," she offered. "I know the area and I could guide you."

MacGyver immediately shook his head. "No," he said. "I'm not going to put you in danger too."

The Afghan woman stared at him with a hard look in her eyes. "He is my nephew," she replied. "I am not going to sit back here while you and your friends go off and play hero; I am coming with you."

"Aadela, I don't think I could live with myself if something happened to you," Mac argued.

"It is too bad that I am not asking permission," Aadela said, her voice and expression telling Mac that she wasn't going to back down. Jack stared at the woman with newfound respect on his face, and he looked over at MacGyver, who was staring at him, expecting Jack to back him up.

"Don't look at me, man," Jack said, holding his hands up in a peaceful gesture. "I'm not gonna go up against this woman. I've learned the hard way not to get in a woman's way if she sets her mind to something. Remember Anja? That woman is terrifying if you stand in her way, and I get the feeling that she's the same way." Jack jerked his thumb at Aadela, and the Afghan woman got a slightly smug look on her face, and she smirked at MacGyver.

"I like your friend," she stated. "He's got a good head on his shoulders."

"Traitor," Mac muttered under his breath.

"Is no one going to ask me what I think?" Riley asked, sounding somewhat offended. Mac turned to the young hacker, hoping that she would side with him and they'd be able to convince Aadela to stay behind.

"Riley, please. Tell us what you think," Mac requested.

"I think she should come," Riley responded, giving Mac a shrug and an innocent expression. Mac's mouth fell open as he stared at Riley, but the hacker merely continued with her innocent smile. Aadela and Jack stared at MacGyver, waiting to hear what the blond's next argument was.

Mac stared between the three of them, having an internal argument with himself. Finally he huffed. "Fine," he conceded. Riley and Jack high-fived, and Aadela looked relieved. "But you need to stay with Riley and be our eyes and ears when we get to the compound," he added, not willing to budge on that part of the deal. Aadela shrugged, not agreeing, but not disagreeing either. Mac decided to take that as a win for the moment, and deal with her staying behind when they crossed that bridge.

"Do we have a plan?" Aadela asked. Mac checked his watch; they had a little less than three and a half hours before Habib's deadline.

"We're going to go to the compound. When we get there, Riley's going to give herself access to the place's cameras; while she finds where they're keeping Atar, Jack and I are going to sneak inside. We find Atar, get him out, and get Habib once you two are secure," Mac explained.

"Sounds simple enough," Aadela replied. "Let's go get my boy back."

 _ **Okay! There's chapter 6, what did you guys think? Are you enjoying the story? I know that I'm rusty writing for this fandom, but hopefully I'm working out the bugs as I go along.**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**Here's chapter 7! Sorry if it's rough, I'm so tired I hardly know if it's day or night anymore xD I feel like the sentences are a little rough, so if you guys have ways that you think they could be edited more, let me know :)**_

 _ **Lemme know what you think!**_

MacGyver and Jack made their way to a back door that Riley had found on the schematics to the building, moving as quickly but as quietly as they could. There was a little less than two hours on the clock that Habib had given them, and while Mac wasn't worried about meeting their deadline, he was worried about the fact that they hadn't run into any problems to _make_ them miss their deadline.

"Hold up guys," Riley said through their comms. The two men froze and backed up against a wall, waiting for Riley to give them the all-clear, and while they were waiting, MacGyver turned to his partner.

"Does this feel too easy to you?"

Jack looked at his partner like he was crazy. "Even if it did, is that a bad thing?" he asked, though he did actually have a feeling that something was off.

"Jack, you can't possibly tell me that you don't think something's wrong?"

"Fine, I guess it does feel a little odd," the older man finally confessed after a few moments. "We haven't hit any snags, and as much as I want to say that it's just our skill that's kept us out of trouble so far, it does seem too easy. But what do you wanna do? We can't turn around now, dude."

"I know," Mac said, looking around them in frustration. "Just...we need to be—"

"Careful? Yeah yeah yeah, I know," Jack cut in. "How many times do I have to tell you that that's my middle name?"

"As many more times as it takes for me to believe it," Mac quipped. Jack made a face at him, but they both knew that they were only trying to look out for each other. Mac checked his watch again, even though he knew how much time they had left on the clock almost by heart.

"Okay, you're clear now," Riley said after the boys waited a few more moments. She and Aadela had stayed behind by the car to watch Mac and Jack's backs, even though Aadela had wanted to come with them to get her nephew. Thankfully, Mac and Jack had been able to convince her to stay behind with Riley.

Once they got the all-clear, the two agents crept out from behind the wall and continued on their way to their entrance. Once they finally reached the door, MacGyver gripped the handle and looked at Jack, waiting for his signal to open the door. Jack held his gun at the ready in one hand, holding up three fingers on his other. He began putting his fingers down while he and Mac silently counted down together, and when the last finger had been lowered, MacGyver turned the handle and opened the door. Jack hurried inside, holding his gun out in front of him, but after a few moments, he stuck his head back outside.

"There's no one in here," he announced. Mac's brow furrowed in confusion, but he followed his partner inside. Sure enough, there were no guards at all, and it made MacGyver extremely uncomfortable.

"Riley, aren't there supposed to be guards here right now?" Jack asked.

"Yeah," Riley replied, sounding confused, as well as a little hesitant. "I'm looking at all the cameras right now, and it looks like you've got a clear shot through the building to Atar's room," she added. MacGyver and Jack looked at each other; this was _definitely_ too easy.

Jack seemed to read his partner's thoughts. "You wanna turn back?" he asked. "Wait until we know exactly what's goin' on and maybe call for backup?"

Mac shook his head. "No," he said. "There isn't time to wait, and besides. Who would we call for backup? We're here going after a terrorist on unsanctioned mission; nothing about this is legal, and while the military would probably appreciate getting Habib back, there's no guarantee that we'd get Atar."

"You got a point," Jack conceded. "Shall we?" he asked, gesturing down the hallway. Mac nodded, and the two of them began moving again. They'd only gone a few dozen feet though when Riley came in again.

"Uh, guys?"

"What is it, Ri?" Jack asked, halting his and Mac's progression again.

"I just lost the cameras."

"What?" Mac asked, his eyes going wide. "Can you get them back?"

"I'm trying, but it's almost like they've been cut; I'll keep trying, but for now, we're blind."

"There's no way we're giving up," Mac said as he saw Jack open his mouth.

"I wasn't gonna suggest that," Jack responded, almost sounding hurt that his partner thought he would suggest such a thing. "I was just gonna say time to go to plan B."

Back at the truck, Aadela looked at Riley. "What is plan B?" she asked, worry for her nephew reaching an all new high.

Riley, who was still working on recovering the cameras, took a moment to glance away from her screen and towards the frightened woman. "Improvise."

 _0-0-0_

It was only a few minutes after Riley lost access to the cameras that Mac and Jack were on the move again. Mac had found a bathroom close to them, and he removed part of the mirror to use as a periscope to peer around corners. It wasn't as good as Riley having the all-seeing eye, but it _was_ better than walking around completely blind.

Thankfully, Riley losing the cameras didn't mean that she'd lost access to the rest of the schematics; she still knew where they were holding Atar, and she still had her friends on GPS, so at least they wouldn't be wandering the building searching every room for the young man.

"Okay guys, just take the next left, and it's the third door on your right," she said as she watched the dots representing her friends get closer to the room where Atar was being held. Jack and MacGyver followed the young woman's directions, and when they came to the door, Jack went first. He opened the door and stepped inside, prepared to shoot any guards if he needed to, but just like before, there were no guards in the room.

Mac hurried inside and saw a single chair sitting in the middle of the room; tied to that chair was Atar. The chair was facing the door, and the teenager looked like he was expecting someone different, but when he saw the blond enter, his eyes lit up. The brightness only lasted for a moment though, and he began trying to speak to MacGyver through the gag, straining at the ropes around his wrists. MacGyver began to move forward to undo the boy's restraints, but Mac suddenly heard Jack say, "Hey, uh, Mac?" followed by the sound of his gun cocking.

"Hello, Mr. MacGyver," a familiar voice said from behind them. Mac whirled around and saw Jack pointing his gun at a man standing just outside the room who had his hands behind his back. Mac's face hardened as he recognized Habib, though the terrorist looked different than the last time Mac had seen him.

The last time, the man had only had the small beginnings of a beard, but in the four years that had passed since they'd seen each other, the bomber had let his beard grow out in full force, and it was almost down to the man's chest. He was also wearing an eyepatch over his right eye, and for a minute, Mac wondered what had happened before he remembered that when he and the terrorist had been fighting, Mac had jabbed his thumb into the other man's eye. He didn't realize it had done that much damage, but apparently it had.

"Lemme guess," Jack said, stepping forward slightly so that he was beginning to put himself between the terrorist and his friend. "You're Habib?"

"In the flesh," the bearded man responded with a sickly sweet smile. "I have been waiting for this day for a long time, MacGyver," he continued, completely ignoring Jack after confirming who he was.

"You've got me here," Mac said. "Let the kid go."

"This sounds familiar," Habib said, pretending to try and remember where he'd heard the argument before. "Ah yes, that's right. That's what you said to me last time we saw each other. But unfortunately, just like last time, I'm afraid that both of you are required for this. This time, though, no one is coming to back you up."

"What am I, chopped liver?" Jack asked, sounding slightly offended.

"I don't know who you are, and to be honest, I really couldn't care less," Habib said, addressing Jack. "Killing MacGyver and this brat is the only thing I have on my to-do list today, but if I can kill more Americans and traitors while doing this, I am more than happy to take that win as well."

"Man, there's only one of you. That just ain't even a fair fight for you," Jack countered.

Habib smirked and brought his hands out from behind his back. Mac's stomach plummeted when he recognized what the object was. "Oh, but I'm not staying around to fight," he explained, confirming Mac's suspicions. Jack stared at the device in the man's hands as well, but before either of the agents could do anything about it, Habib pressed a button on the remote and dropped it. The remote hit the ground and bounced a few times, but to make sure that they couldn't use the device again, Habib brought his foot crashing down onto it, breaking it into a dozen pieces. With that, the terrorist turned and fled out the door.

As soon as the button on the remote had been pressed, an ominous beeping began to sound close by. Mac knew what that sound was by heart, and he immediately began looking for the bomb.

"Jack, go after him!" Mac shouted as he scanned the room, then got down on his hands and knees, hoping against hope that his hunch about the bomb's location was wrong.

"What about you?" Jack asked, not wanting to leave his friend. Mac looked up at him gravely from his position by Atar's chair.

"I've got my own stuff to figure out here," he replied. "Go," he insisted. "Don't let Habib get away!"

Jack hesitated for a moment more, but then let out a growl of frustration as he turned and ran off towards the retreating terrorist. Mac turned his attention once more to the Atar and the chair he was sitting on. Or, more accurately, the underside of the chair, where a bomb was strapped. The first thing MacGyver did was check and see how much time they had, and his stomach dropped when he saw they had less than ninety seconds on the clock.

His brain, which had been running about ninety miles a minute, kicked its processing into overdrive while the blond tried to figure out what to do. _First things first,_ he thought to himself, pulling out his pocket knife and cutting through the ropes keeping Atar secured to the chair. Once his hands were free, the teenager reached up and removed his gag.

"Mr. MacGyver," he said as Mac cut through the bindings on his legs as well. "I am sorry, I tried to tell you to go, tried to warn you that it was a trap, but-"

"Hey, you're fine," Mac cut him off. "I wouldn't have left you anyway. I figured it was a trap," he admitted. "I'm just a little disappointed that I was right."

Atar got off the chair and stood back, watching as the blond American he'd rescued all those years ago slid under the chair to work on the bomb. "Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked, crouching down and peering at MacGyver.

"Uh, yeah. You can get out of here," Mac said as he peered at the bomb, trying to isolate the wires he needed to cut.

"What?" Atar asked. "I'm not leaving you, I can help you!"

"Atar," Mac cut in, trying not to sound too impatient. "My friends and I came here with your aunt to get you out. If you don't leave and get out, then this whole thing's been for nothing!"

"I am not leaving without you," Atar insisted. "You had me hide last time we met, and I'm not doing it again this time!"

MacGyver was going to argue with the teenager more, but just then Jack cut in on the comms.

"Hey, uh, Mac?"

"Yeah?"

"Remember how I was chasing Habib?"

Worry for his partner and friend immediately rose in Mac's chest, and he answered, "Yeah? You alright?"

"I am, but uh, while I was chasing down our friendly neighborhood terrorist, he slipped out a back door. I went to follow him, but I happened to glance in one of the other rooms, and it looks like the bomb you're working on isn't the only one in the building."

Mac's stomach dropped at the revelation of a second bomb, and he looked at Atar, who looked confused. Once again, Mac did the calculations in his head, but this time he came up with a different result.

"Come on," he said, getting out from under the bomb, which had a little more than forty-five seconds on the clock. He stood up, grabbed Atar by the arm, and began running with the teenager through the building. "Riley?" he asked. "I need an exit."

"Got it," the hacker replied. "Twenty feet ahead of you, there should be a door that leads outside. You'll be on the southwest side of the building, so you'll be on the opposite side of us, but it's the quickest way out for you."

"Perfect. Jack, what's your twenty?"

"I chased Habib back towards where we first came in, but when I stopped to look at the second bomb, he got away. I'm sorry, man," Jack said.

"It's fine, just get out of the building!" Mac said. They could worry about Habib later. At the moment, the only thing Mac was concerned about was getting the people he was with to safety. "Riley, you and Aadela should be a safe distance away from the explosion, but I'd get to cover just in case."

"Are you guys out?" Riley asked, worry leaking through her voice.

"I am," Jack replied. "Mac, I'm comin' around to help you and the kid."

"Jack, don't," Mac insisted as he pushed open the door that Riley had directed them to. "We're just getting out now, and there's no time to waste. Get away from the building, get as far away as you can!" Mac grabbed Atar and pushed the young man in front of him as the two of them ran in the opposite direction of the building. There was no confirmation from Jack, and Mac could only hope that his friend was doing what he'd instructed.

There was no warning before the bomb went off; one minute, Mac and Atar were running, and the next second there was a huge _BOOM_ , followed by a blast wave that threw MacGyver and Atar into the air. The last thing MacGyver thought as he flew through the air was that he was grateful that Atar was in front of him because hopefully it meant that the teenager wouldn't get as hurt. Then the blond hit the ground, and everything went black.

 _0-0-0_

Muffled voices and sounds floated around MacGyver's head, and he struggled to grab onto what was being said. He kept drifting in and out of consciousness, the voices fading out as well. One of the times he was awake, he tried to open his eyes but for some reason he couldn't seem to pry his lids open, because all he saw was black. He thought he could hear Jack yelling his name, but when the blond tried to respond, all that came out was a rattling cough.

"Hang in there, bud," he heard Jack say.

Smells, sounds, basically everything that Mac's senses could pick up were muddled and confusing, so when Mac felt himself being lifted up, he wasn't sure if he was imagining things or not.

"Jack?" he asked in a raspy voice, trying once again to open his eyes. He tried to sit up, but a hand on his shoulder prevented him from moving.

"Hey Mac, I'm here," Jack's voice said from above him; or at least, what Mac assumed was above him. Directions didn't make much sense to him at the moment either.

"Jack, I can't...why won't my eyes open?" Mac asked, reaching his hands up to force his eyes open if necessary. Jack answered before he could though, and his friend's words sent a chill through Mac's spine.

"Mac, your eyes...your eyes _are_ open, man."

 _ **}:}**_


	8. Chapter 8

_***Awkward grin* Hi guysssss... Sorry for that cliffhanger? Is that what I'm supposed to say? XD ;)**_

 _ **Okay, so in this chapter there's a time-jump to right after the explosion, just so that no one wonders what happened. It just sort of gave a nice seque to the next section, I thought.**_

 _ **I don't own these lovely characters except my OCs.**_

MacGyver didn't remember much about the ride to the hospital, and when they got there, the nurses gave him something that completely knocked him out.

Jack and Riley looked in on their unconscious friend, watching as the doctors removed bits of shrapnel from the blond's body; thankfully, the doctors assured the two Americans that nothing vital had been hit. While they were removing the metal and stitching up their patient, one of the nurses also brought over gauze pads and placed them on Mac's eyes, securing them there in place with medical tape. That nurse walked out the door and was immediately accosted by an answer-hungry Jack.

"How is he? How long before he wakes up? What's going on with his eyes? Is it permanent? How long-"

"Please," the nurse said, holding up her hand to stem the flow of questions. "Your friend is fine, especially considering what he just went through. He should wake up in a few hours, and in regards to his eyes, we can't tell for how long he'll be blind, but we think that it's temporary, and he should gain his sight back soon."

"Wait, wait, wait," Jack interrupted. "You _think_ it's temporary?"

"This injury is actually not as uncommon as you might think. Those who get caught in the blast wave of a bomb often receive wounds to the back of their heads, and while the side effects vary, temporary blindness is one of the more common ones. The severity is yet to be determined; we'll need to run some tests on him, but for now I think it is safe to say that your friend should regain his vision, we are just not sure when."

That didn't make Jack any less frazzled, but when he opened his mouth to pepper the nurse with more questions, Riley put a hand on his shoulder to stop him, giving the nurse a chance to get away to help her other patients.

"Jack, I know you're freaked out. I am too," Riley admitted. "But bothering the doctors and nurses isn't gonna make Mac better any faster, and it just makes them annoyed at you."

"I am _not_ annoying!" Jack insisted. Riley raised her eyebrow at the older man, and Jack amended his statement. "Okay, I'm not _that_ annoying." When Riley's expression still didn't change, Jack threw his hands in the air. "Fine, I _am_ that annoying, is that what you wanna hear?"

"Pretty much," Riley replied with a smirk. "Listen, Mac's in good hands. Why don't we go get some food and see how Atar and Aadela are doing?"

"Thanks Ri, but I'm gonna stay here; y'know, wait until Mac wakes up so he's not alone."

Riley wanted to tell Jack to come on, to insist that he leave, but the hacker knew better than to try that, so she decided to compromise. "Fine, I'll go get us some food, and then if Mac hasn't woken up by the time we finish eating, we go see Atar and Aadela."

Jack mulled that option over for a minute, then finally nodded. "Fine. But only for a few minutes."

Riley agreed and went off to find them some food while Jack just stared through the window at his friend.

Mac's injuries hadn't needed any type of surgery, just removing the shrapnel and stitching the wounds up, and they were able to do that in the room that Mac was staying in. That meant Jack was able to stand outside while they worked and be as close to his friend as was permitted. Depending on who you asked, he was either a very annoying watcher, or they hadn't talked to him yet.

It took about fifteen minutes for Riley to come back with the promised food, but when she did come back, she found Jack in the exact position she had left him in: his arms folded across his chest, one hand rubbing his chin as if he were thinking as he stared into the room with his friend.

"Hey," she greeted as she handed Jack the food.

"Hey," the older man replied, finally breaking his gaze away from Mac to focus on Riley.

"Any changes?"

"Not really. They removed the last of the shrapnel and finished stitching up the last wound a few minutes ago, but he still hasn't woken up."

Riley looked at the older man, taking in the scratches that Jack had on his own face and arms. He'd been further away from the building when it had exploded, but he'd still been caught in the blast wave, and he was the one who'd gotten into the rubble to remove the debris and everything from Mac and Atar, scratching himself up in the process. The doctors had tried insisting that he get his wounds looked at, but he waved them off, insisting that he'd had worse, and that he just wanted to stay where he was to make sure Mac didn't wake up alone.

The last nurse began to come out of the room, but Jack stopped him before he could leave. "Hey, when's the kid supposed to wake up?"

The nurse looked back in the room he'd just exited. "Well, I would say any time now. You can wait in there if you want," he added. Jack nodded in appreciation, and while the nurse walked away, Jack and Riley slipped into the room.

They weren't in the nicest hospital in the country, but it had been the closest, and everything was clean, which was really all that Jack cared about. The older man grabbed one of the old plastic chairs sitting in a corner and brought it over for Riley to sit on. She accepted the seat, and Jack found another chair for himself.

They had been sitting there for a little less than ten minutes when the monitors attached to Mac began to change in their patterns, and the blond started moving his head around.

"Hey man," Jack said, uncrossing his leg and getting up in one smooth motion. "You're good, you're safe."

"What...what happened?" MacGyver asked. "Why can't I see?" The blond brought his hands up to feel his eyes. His fingers encountered the gauze pads and he started to pull them off, but Jack grabbed his hands.

"Whoa, leave those on there," he said. "What do you remember?"

"I remember the bomb going off, Jack. I don't have amnesia, I just can't see."

"No need to take that tone," Jack chastised lightly. Mac looked slightly repentant, and Jack continued. "The doctors say you sustained some sort of injury to the back of your head, and it's caused temporary blindness."

MacGyver was silent for several moments after that announcement. Jack wondered if the kid was okay, but then Mac spoke again, though it wasn't what Jack was expecting to hear. "What about Atar and Aadela?"

Jack looked at Riley, slightly surprised. She shrugged, and the young woman answered the question. "We were gonna go see them next, but from what we've heard, they're good. Atar is a little banged up, but the doctors say he's gonna be just fine," Riley explained. Honestly, Mac wondering about the others actually seemed normal to Riley, for several reasons. One, because Angus MacGyver was always looking out for others before himself. Two, because Riley knew from experience that sometimes when you get bad news you just needed to change the topic, and have your own little freak-out, whether internal or external, when you were alone.

"Ah, Mr. MacGyver, you're awake," a nurse said as she came into the room. She looked at Jack and Riley, then said, "We need to take him to do a few tests to see how extensive the damage is. You're welcome to wait here, or you can-"

"You can go visit Aadela and Atar," Mac interjected. "Go see how they're doing and if you can do anything to help at all."

"That is definitely an option," the nurse confirmed, giving Mac an amused look.

"Only you, Angus MacGyver, would insist that we check on someone else to make sure they're okay when you're the one seriously hurt," Jack said, though Mac's insistence that they check on the others definitely didn't come as a surprise to him or Riley.

"Atar was the reason we came here," Mac reminded his friend as the nurse began wheeling Mac's bed out of the room. "I just want to know he's safe."

"Hey, how long are these tests gonna take?" Jack asked.

"The tests themselves should take thirty minutes, and then it'll take probably another two or so hours before we get the results back. We'll bring him back to his room once we've run all the tests, and then we'll come show you his results when they come out."

"Guys, go see the others," Mac insisted as he was wheeled down the hall. The other American agents stared at each other, Riley raising her eyebrows at Jack when she saw that he wanted to argue.

"He's going to be fine," Riley said, pulling the older man down the hallway to go visit the two other people they'd come to the hospital with.

 _0-0-0_

 _After the Explosion_

"Get down!" Riley yelled, pulling the Afghan woman down below the jeep with her. It wasn't a moment too soon, either. Literally five seconds after Riley barricaded the two of them behind the vehicle, the building exploded and sent shrapnel flying in every direction. A rather large piece of concrete hit the jeep and rocked it slightly, but almost miraculously, nothing came over the side to hit the two women.

Aadela only waited for about thirty seconds after the explosion before hopping to her feet and running around the side of the jeep. Riley was quick to follow, and she was about to stop the woman, but seeing the wreckage of the building made her heart skip a few beats, and she instead joined Aadela as the Afghan woman sprinted towards the building.

When they were about a hundred yards away from the building, Riley saw a figure get up from the ground, and she breathed a sigh of relief. "Jack," she called out as they got closer. Jack heard his name called out and turned around, waiting for the women to make it to him.

"Do you know where-"

"Haven't seen them," Riley cut in. "They were coming out a door on the other side though. I know the way." She took off again, the other two following behind her as she led them to the side of the building Atar and MacGyver had been exiting on. When they finally rounded the building, they all stopped dead in their tracks for a moment as they observed the scene in front of them.

Wreckage was strewn everywhere, from large pieces of brick to structural beams, and neither of the men they were searching for was in sight.

"Come on," Jack said, his voice tight. "They're in here somewhere."

They searched and searched until finally Aadela let out a shout, and the other two hurried to where she was standing. There, buried under the rubble were MacGyver and Atar, both of them unconscious.

From what they could see, Atar had bruises on his face and a small trickle of blood coming from his forehead. The young man's arm was also bent at an awkward angle, and Jack knew immediately that it was broken.

MacGyver's shirt was torn in several different places, and in each place it was torn, there were nasty-looking cuts that were bleeding, but other than that, Jack couldn't see anything physically wrong with his friend.

"Riley, call for help," Jack instructed as he got down and began carefully removing any loose rubble that he could. Thankfully, neither of the men were pinned down by anything, so Jack felt fairly comfortable getting the debris off his friend and the teenager.

After she made the call, Riley came over and began helping Jack and Aadela remove as much debris as she could. "Help is on the way," she assured them. "It took a minute to find someone who spoke English, but they said that help will be here in five minutes or less. They heard the explosion and were already sending people to check it out, but now they're sending ambulances as well."

"Hold on guys," Jack muttered. "We're almost home-free."

Suddenly, MacGyver began shifting and moaning, and Jack looked down at him. "Hey Mac, I'm here," he said, the relief apparent in his voice.

 _0-0-0_

 _Present Time_

Jack and Riley stopped just outside the room Atar was in, listening as they heard Aadela and her nephew speaking Arabic inside. The two Americans didn't want to interrupt the moment the aunt and nephew were having, but it was almost like Aadela sensed their presence, because a few moments later, she opened the door.

"Jack, Riley," she greeted with a smile. "Come in," she invited, stepping back and gesturing for the Phoenix agents to come inside. Jack studied the young man as they walked in; as he'd suspected, the kid had broken his arm, but thankfully it wasn't too serious a break, no surgery required. There was a butterfly bandage covering the cut on Atar's forehead, and while the bruises were even more prominent on his face, the teenager still managed a smile.

"Hey kid," Jack greeted Atar after giving Aadela a short hug. "How ya feelin'?"

"I am alright," Atar replied.

"He has an uh...injury on his brain?" Aadela explained, searching for the word.

"A concussion?"

"Yes, that is it," Aadela confirmed. "The doctors also say he will probably experience hearing loss, though they don't think it will be a bad amount. But the doctors say besides that and his broken arm, his wounds are minor. A few cuts and bruises from the bomb, and a few bruised ribs, but he is going to be fine. How is MacGyver?"

"He's...he's been better," Jack explained. Aadela had been there when MacGyver had announced that he couldn't see, back at the bomb site, but she had been with her nephew since they'd reached the hospital, and she hadn't been caught up on the blond's condition.

"The doctors said that his blindness is temporary, and that it's actually a fairly common side effect of getting hit in the head as hard as he did," Riley explained. "He had some shrapnel that they had to get out and then stitch closed. Right now he's being taken down to have a few tests run to see how much damage the back of his head took."

Aadela looked down at her hands, and her face morphed into an expression that Jack was all too familiar with. "Hey now," he said firmly. "None of this was your fault. Mac wouldn't do anything different if he had to do it again, besides maybe get out of the building a little sooner. There was no way he was going to leave you two alone with this happening, so you can just stop that sort of thinking right now." Jack felt like he was having deja vu, since he had just had this conversation with MacGyver a little less than fifteen hours ago.

Aadela looked like she was going to respond, but a nurse walked in and said that she needed to take Atar's vitals, so Jack and Riley stepped out of the room, promising Aadela that they'd come back soon. The two of them shut the door behind them, then Jack turned to Riley.

"I'm gonna go uh, find uh…the bathroom."

"You're going to go see if Mac's done with his testing because you're scared to leave him alone for more than five minutes?" Riley interpreted. Jack looked a little indignant, but he finally gave in.

"I just get a feelin' that somethin' ain't right," he said. "When was the last time my gut was wrong?"

Riley immediately had an answer in her head. "Last week, you were convinced that the burrito on the bus was a mini bomb."

"No one just leaves a perfectly good burrito alone on a bus," Jack muttered grumpily. "Okay, let's change the wording. When have my gut instincts about Mac been wrong?"

That gave Riley pause; usually when Jack had a gut feeling that concerned his partner, or any of the team for that matter, it was usually right. "Okay," she finally gave in. "I don't think they're gonna let you in though."

"As long as I can see the kid's fine, I'm good," Jack promised. With that, the two of them walked down the hallway, trying to find their way to the MRI testing center. All the signs were in Arabic though, so they had to stop and ask a passing nurse for directions. Finally, they knew where they were going, and they headed off in the direction the nurse had pointed them in.

 _0-0-0_

MacGyver was wheeled into a testing room, and when the pulled the bed to a stop, one of the nurses helped him off his bed and onto the table that would be inserted into the MRI machine. Once he was settled down, the doctors gently began velcroing the blond's wrists and ankles to the table.

"Don't worry," one of them assured him. "This is just to minimize movement; the test will only take a few minutes, and then we'll get you out of there."

MacGyver nodded in agreement, and after a few more seconds they'd finished securing him to the table. The mechanisms in the bed whirred to life, and Mac felt the table he was on begin to move backwards, into what he figured was the actual machine.

"Okay, just sit tight Mr. MacGyver, we'll get this started in just a few minutes," the doctor assured him before the American was left alone in silence.

The blond sat there inside the machine for what he thought was more than a few minutes, still weirded out by the fact that he couldn't see anything, though he was doing his best to try and not let that freak him out. After a few more minutes of waiting, Mac began to wonder what was taking so long.

"Everything okay?" he called out, wishing again for the thousandth time that he could see. There was no answer, but since Mac had already been put into the machine, and he had no idea of his surroundings, he figured it was better to stay put. Still, something didn't set right in the blond's gut, and he wished his hands or feet were free so that he could try and feel around for a way out of the machine. After a few more seconds of waiting though, he heard the platform he was on begin to move, so he stilled.

As it was brought out of the MRI machine, Mac tilted his head, trying to hear anything the doctors were saying. He knew they hadn't run any tests, and it made the American wonder if there was something wrong with the machine. However, when the table stopped moving, Mac realized that he couldn't hear anyone talking. The uneasy feeling got even stronger, and Mac began to pull at his restraints slightly.

"Is something wrong?" Mac asked, waiting for someone to come over and undo the straps holding him down. He wasn't released though, even after Mac felt someone's presence above his head. He started to ask if someone could undo his restraints, but the person above him interrupted. It wasn't a doctor though, and they weren't talking about his MRI.

"How poetic," a familiar voice above Mac's bed drawled. MacGyver immediately jerked, trying to move away from the voice that he immediately recognized, but his hands and legs were still velcroed to the table he was on. Trying to calm his racing thoughts, MacGyver wondered what had happened to the nurses and doctors, but Habib continued talking as he watched the American struggle against his restraints. "You take one of my eyes, I take your sight completely. There is a certain air of justice in this, I think."

MacGyver would have responded, but it was at that moment that Habib lowered both of his hands, covering Mac's nose and mouth, and the blond suddenly found it extremely difficult to breathe.

 _ ***Hides* So does this mean I wasn't really sorry for the last cliffie, because I knew I was going to do it again? :D**_


	9. Chapter 9

_**Hi guyssss...I'm so glad you all enjoyed that last chapter ending! :D**_

 _ **Let's see what happens to Mac...last we saw, he was being smothered *awkward grin and awkward sidle out of the way***_

As he jerked his head from side to side trying to get his face free from Habib's suffocating grip, Mac felt his other injuries from the explosion protest, trying to tell him that he needed to rest if he wanted to heal.

 _That's great,_ he snapped at his body. _If I don't fight now though, we won't have to worry about healing at all!_

Thrashing his head back and forth really did nothing to help loosen the grip Habib had on MacGyver's face, though the constant movement was starting to make his head hurt even more. The blond couldn't see, but he began to feel lightheaded, and he felt like if he did have his sight, he would have begun to see black spots dancing across his vision. He could feel his heart rate slowing down, and he tried desperately once again to get some sort of air into his lungs. His chest rose off the table as he fought, but he was already weak from the explosion, and now lack of oxygen.

Suddenly, an alarm began blaring, and Habib's grip loosened ever so slightly as he jumped in surprise. His hands stayed firmly over Mac's face, but his fingers did open up just a little bit, providing enough of a gap that Mac was able to suck some air in through his nose, clearing his head somewhat.

MacGyver knew that he'd never be able to pull the velcro straps off the table, so he decided to try a different tactic. Instead of pulling up on his velcro straps, MacGyver began to pull his arm back towards his head, trying to wiggle his wrist through the restraint. He had almost succeeded in pulling his wrist all the way through, but Habib saw what the blond was trying to do.

"Ah, ah, ah," he said, using the hand covering Mac's nose to reach down and grab the American's wrist. MacGyver drew in a deep breath through his nose, grateful that something good had come out of him getting caught. He realized that Habib was in a pickle now though; the terrorist could either let Mac's arm go and continue to suffocate him, or he could hold Mac's arm down and prevent him from escaping while Mac's nostrils were left open and fully functioning.

Habib considered his options for a moment, but Mac knew he didn't have long. Even though his sight was gone for the moment, Mac's other senses were working just fine, and he could hear the hospital reacting to the alarm; people were shouting and asking questions, but one thing was certain. They were coming for the testing room, and Mac knew that if he knew that, so did Habib.

While Mac's nose was uncovered, it was only doing so much to give him oxygen, and he was beginning to feel lightheaded again. He decided to try and pull his arm out of Habib's grasp, but the terrorist had a strong hold on him, and Mac was still working off the effect of both the drugs he'd been given when he'd gotten to the hospital, as well as being strangled less than a minute ago.

Mac figured that Habib really had two options to get out of the hospital scott-free; one would be if he left right now, before any doctors or security had the chance to get to them. The second option was the one Mac was worried that Habib was going to go for, and after a few moments of hesitation, the terrorist did just that.

"Get up," Habib instructed, taking his hand off the kid's mouth and undoing the velcro restraint Mac had nearly pulled himself out of. MacGyver moved slowly; he knew what Habib's plan was, and he tried to buy himself more time. Habib seemed to notice though, and he growled.

"Look, I can't see what I'm doing," Mac pointed out, still panting for breath slightly. He emphasized his point by feeling around for his other wrist. MacGyver couldn't see the terrorist's face, but after a second, he felt the man's hand reach over and undo the other velcro straps on his wrist and ankles.

"Get up," Habib repeated, grabbing Mac by his shoulder to 'help' him get off the table quicker. A cold, hard piece of metal that MacGyver was all too familiar with was jammed into his back as Habib muttered, "Move," partnered with a shove to get the blond moving.

"Seriously?" Mac asked in frustration as he stumbled forward. "I have no idea where I'm going." An idea came to the blond to try and buy him some time, but he wasn't sure if he could pull it off; talking people's ears off was usually Jack's department, and MacGyver was pretty sure that he was suffering from a concussion as well as his other injuries. "I mean, I'm guessing if this is a fairly standard hospital, the size of this room in particular is probably going to be about twenty-one feet by thirteen feet, but I don't know if this is a standard hospital. I don't know if they have more than one MRI machine in here, or where the doors are leading to the equipment and control rooms, which are each about another twelve-by-twelve, give or take a few feet. If you're taking us out through any of those rooms, which would probably be the easiest thing to do so that we don't go out into the hallway just yet, there are going to be desks and cabinets and other furniture in the way that I just don't know how to navigate my way around blindly, so-"

"Stop talking, stop talking, _stop talking!"_ Habib muttered, shoving his gun harder into MacGyver's back, right above one of the wounds that had been stitched earlier. Mac winced in pain as the wound protested against the pressure, but he did shut his mouth. He decided to let his mind try and work without working his mouth at the same time, devoting all his brain power to getting himself out of the situation.

"Just...walk straight forward until I tell you," Habib said after a minute. Mac did as he was told, taking a few experimental steps in what he figured what a straight line in front of him, and when Habib didn't protest, the blond figured he was going in the right direction.

"Turn right," Habib ordered after Mac figured he'd gone forward about six feet. MacGyver did as he was told, but he tripped over something before Habib could tell him to step over whatever was on the floor. Mac began to push himself to his feet, and his hand brushed what felt like a pair of pants. With his blood suddenly a lot cooler than it had been before, Mac felt his way up to the person's face.

"Leave them," Habib snapped, grabbing Mac and hauling him to his feet.

"Did you kill them?" Mac demanded. He'd been trying to feel for a pulse, but Habib had grabbed him before he could find one.

"What does it matter to you?" Habib snarled. "As long as you do what I tell you to do, no one else will get hurt."

That didn't exactly give Mac an answer, but he was hoping that the doctors and nurses who had been about to run his MRI were only unconscious, and not worse. Habib spoke again. "Watch out, there's a desk on your left."

To keep up appearances, Mac shifted himself to the right slightly, but he made himself trip over his own feet and fell in the direction Habib said the desk was. His elbow hit the edge of the furniture, and the blond let out a hiss as his funny bone began throbbing, but when he put his hands down on the desk and moved them around a little, his heart started beating a little harder when his fingers brushed against a syringe on the desk. He didn't know if it was full of anything or not, but it was something to help him nonetheless. As Mac wrapped his fingers around the piece of medical equipment, he hoped that Habib was too busy trying to figure out if MacGyver's stumble had delayed them long enough for someone to catch up with them or not.

The terrorist growled and for a minute, MacGyver wondered if Habib had actually seen him grab the syringe, but the man simply grabbed MacGyver and hauled him back up, though this time he didn't push Mac ahead of him; he held the blond close to his chest, wrapping one arm around the blond's neck and placing his gun against Mac's head.

"La taqtarib," he shouted, his loud voice echoing in Mac's ear and making his already sore head pound even more. For a minute, the American didn't know who Habib was talking to, but then someone else answered, and Mac realized that people had been able to catch up to them. Someone else began speaking in Arabic to Habib, but the terrorist wasn't willing to listen to any sort of negotiation. Amid the speaking, MacGyver heard another voice, one that was extremely familiar, and even with the situation he was in, he felt a huge sense of relief flow through him.

 _0-0-0_

Jack and Riley were walking down the hallway after having once again asked for directions to the MRI lab. They were only a few minutes away from the lab when an alarm began to sound, and lights began flashing. The two Phoenix agents looked at each other gravely before taking off down the hallway, following the security agents to the location of the disturbance, though they had a pretty good idea that they knew where the alarm had originated from.

Sure enough, they rounded the corner and came upon a sight that froze Jack's blood.

"Mac!" Jack shouted as he saw his partner and friend in the grip of the deranged terrorist. The older agent pushed his way to the front of the crowd of doctors and security guards, with Riley following close behind. Habib had a gun placed against MacGyver's head with one arm wrapped around the kid's neck, but what Jack noticed almost immediately was how tired Mac looked.

"Everyone stay back!" Habib shouted again, this time in English. He brought his gun around and pointed it at some of the people blocking his path, and they backed up. Jack slowly reached for his own gun, but he knew that this wasn't some sort of junkie who was grabbing a random patient to try and get away. This was a terrorist who was out for revenge, and Jack knew that the man would more than likely have no problem putting a bullet in MacGyver's brain if he was stopped, so Jack moved slowly so he wouldn't spook the terrorist.

"You are going to let us through, and no one is going to follow us," Habib instructed as he began walking forward, pushing his hostage with him. The crowd of doctors and nurses parted to make way for the terrorist. As Habib walked forward with Mac, Jack noticed his friend fiddling with something in his hand, and the older agent got ready to grab his gun. If his partner was planning something, Jack knew that he was going to have to act fast.

 _0-0-0_

MacGyver felt himself pushed forward, and he took a few halting steps, still unsure of where he was going and trying to stall for as much time as he could. It was only when Habib whispered in his ear that he was going to shoot someone in the next five seconds if Mac didn't pick up the pace that the blond hurried up. He had been lucky so far; Habib hadn't seen the syringe in Mac's hand yet, but the American knew that his luck would run out if he didn't act soon. He began fiddling with the syringe, trying to turn in around in his hand so that the needle was facing Habib's leg. Mac waited until they had walked forward a few more steps before he jabbed the syringe backwards quickly, feeling it sink into the man's leg. The blond depressed the syringe and felt the resistance of liquid inside, so he knew it was full of something, though he didn't know what. At the moment though, he didn't care.

Habib let out a yell of pain at the sudden sharp sting in his thigh, and he released MacGyver on instinct. While Mac was happy his plan had worked, he suddenly realized that he _still_ had no idea where he was going, and he just stood there for a second before finally beginning to move forward. He'd gone maybe three steps when he heard Jack yelling for him to duck, as well as a yell from behind him, so Mac followed his partner's instructions and dropped to the floor.

A single gunshot was fired, followed by a split-second of silence. Then it was mass pandemonium as the hospital staff started running around calling out orders and numbers to each other. The only problem was, they were all talking in Arabic, and Mac still didn't know very many words in that language. He wished he had his sight back so that he could see what was going on, because he wasn't sure who had been shot. He didn't think it was Jack, but his partner hadn't called out to him since telling him to get down, and a small part of MacGyver wondered if it was his partner who'd been shot, not Habib.

 _Habib would have grabbed you again by now if Jack had been shot,_ Mac reminded himself. He comforted himself in that fact and decided it was time to figure out what was going on.

MacGyver slowly stood up, not noticing that all the doctors and nurses rushed around him, though he could feel himself getting buffeted from side to side. He knew he had to get out of the crowd, but he literally had no idea where to go until he felt someone grab his shoulder gently. Even in his current state of blindness, Mac would have recognized that grip anywhere; it had been one that pulled him back out of the line of fire, tried to stop him from doing something crazy, and many other things on numerous accounts.

"Jack," Mac said, letting out a breath of air he'd been holding since hearing the shot fired. "Is Riley-"

"I'm here too," the hacker said, grabbing Mac's other arm and helping the blond blind kid out of the throng of doctors and nurses hurrying about, getting Habib ready for surgery; they were doctors after all, and their first job was to make sure people were taken care of.

"What did you hit him with?" Jack asked.

"Not sure," MacGyver replied, though his words were starting to sound slightly slurred. He was exhausted, but he held out the syringe for Jack to look at. He felt the needle being removed from his grip, and Jack chuckled.

"A morphine shot," he informed the small group. "So even if I hadn't'a winged him, he'd'a been out in a few minutes anyway. Nice goin', Mac."

MacGyver nodded, but he was too tired to respond, and the stress that his body had been put through finally began to catch up with him. He felt his legs begin to buckle, but Jack must have noticed too, because his grip on the blond tightened.

"Come on," Jack said, gently pulling on Mac's arm to direct him. "Let's get you back to bed until someone can come get a look atcha."

 _ **Seeeeee? I can be nice! No cliffie!**_

 _ **There's only one more chapter to go, so I'll post that in a few days! Until then, lemme know what you think :)**_


	10. Chapter 10

_**Okay! Last chapter...let's see what happens :)**_

"I had to call in a favor to get this plane here," Matty said as she observed her three employees walking out of the hospital. Jack and Riley were on either side of MacGyver, helping their temporarily blind friend towards the car that would take them to their plane ride home. The doctors hadn't really wanted to let Mac go yet, but Matty had shown up and taken over care of her agent.

"I'm surprised you came yourself, Matty," Jack commented.

"Yeah, because after what happened here, I'm going to trust you with a plane?" Matty sounded cross, but her agents knew that she didn't really mean it...mostly.

"I let you go for three days and this is what happens?" their boss continued, shaking her head in amazement.

"Three days—Wait. Is today Christmas?" Mac asked. He hadn't realized how much time had passed since they'd gotten that first video of Atar.

"That's usually what people consider the twenty-fifth of December, yes," Matty quipped.

"Give the kid a break," Jack defended. "He's had a tough go of it lately."

"I mean, I'm just glad I got all my shopping done before now," Mac added with a smirk, knowing Jack would know exactly what he was talking about.

"I dunno what you're talking about," Jack replied with a sniff, though he made a face at his partner since the kid couldn't see. Mac knew the older man though, and his smirk widened.

"I know you're making a face Jack."

"No I'm not," came the petulant reply.

"Would you two stop it?" Matty ordered, not willing to deal with the bickering for the next fifteen hours. "I'll drug one of you myself if I have to to keep you quiet," she threatened. None of the agents doubted their boss's word, so Jack and Mac wisely quit their fighting.

"Hey, do we know how Aadela and Atar are doing?" Mac asked.

Riley looked backwards towards the entrance of the hospital. "Why don't you ask them yourself?"

The hacker and Jack turned around, making MacGyver turn with them and face the two Afghan people who had just come out of the hospital. Atar had a bandage around his head and his arm was in a sling, but he was still grinning as he limped alongside his aunt.

"You weren't going to leave without saying goodbye, were you?" Aadela asked, though Mac could hear the lightness in her voice.

"Blame these guys," Mac replied snarkily, gesturing his head towards Jack, Riley, and Matty. "I have to do what they say."

"Is that so?" Jack asked, a mischievous glint in his eye.

"Anything within reason," the blond quickly amended.

"You're no fun," Jack griped quietly, but MacGyver ignored him. He couldn't see his two Afghan friends, but he turned in what he assumed was their general direction.

"You guys gonna be okay?"

Aadela looked at her nephew, reaching up and gently ruffling his hair. Jack watched the exchange with interest. The height difference between the two was rather funny, actually. Aadela was almost a head and a half shorter than her nephew, but she still managed to reach the top of his head to mess his hair up. "We will be," Aadela finally answered. The Afghan woman moved forward and placed her hand on Mac's cheek, and the blond smiled at the touch. "You be safe now," she cautioned. "Make sure you rest and let yourself heal."

"Oh don't worry," Mac replied. "With these guys watching me, there's no way they're going to let me do anything crazy or stupid. Except maybe Jack; he might wanna try something crazy."

Aadela gave the accused friend a stern look. Jack held up his hands innocently. "Hey!" he defended. "I'm not gonna do anything like that!"

"Make sure you don't, or I'll come to America and knock some sense into you myself," Aadela threatened. Jack didn't doubt the woman.

"Cross my heart," he promised, miming the motion over the left side of his chest. Aadela's eyes narrowed, but everyone knew it was just in good fun, mostly. Atar moved forward towards the blond.

"Thank you for coming for me, Mr. MacGyver," he said.

"Hey, it's no problem," Mac assured the kid. He held out his hand, which Atar took, and they shook hands firmly. Once her nephew had stepped away, Aadela went up on her tiptoes and gave Mac a gentle hug, placing a quick kiss on his cheek as well.

"Thank you, again," she whispered in his ear. "Thank you for bringing my boy back to me."

"Mac, we need to go," Matty gently reminded her employee. The blond nodded, quickly finishing his hug with Aadela.

"I'll do better to keep in touch this time," he promised before Jack and Riley turned and helped him towards the car.

"Yeah, maybe you guys'll have to come to the States sometime," Jack suggested after he'd gotten Mac loaded into the car.

"Maybe," Aadela agreed.

Jack climbed into the car but rolled down the window as the door was shut. Jack and Riley looked out the window while Mac turned his head in the general direction he knew the small family was in, and they all waved. Aadela and Atar waved back and continued waving until the car drove off, at which point Aadela turned to her nephew and the two of them walked back into the hospital.

 _0-0-0_

Once they got back to California, Matty had a team of agents waiting on the ground, and they immediately whisked Mac off to the Phoenix medical center. Jack wanted to follow them, but Matty stopped him, ordering him and Riley to go get themselves checked out, seeing as how they'd been near the explosion as well.

Jack had protested, but Matty, with her evil glare, won their argument. It took a few hours for the doctors to reluctantly allow Jack to leave their care, but as soon as he could, he went looking for his partner. He finally found the kid reclining in one of the medical center beds, though the bandages covering his eyes had been changed. The older agent didn't know if MacGyver was asleep or not, but his question was answered when Mac turned his head as if he'd sensed his partner's presence.

"Jack?"

"Hey," Jack greeted as he moved further into the room, grabbing a chair and sitting himself next to Mac's bed. "Wanna hear some good news?"

"Always?" Mac replied, though he sounded confused.

"I just heard from one of my military buddies over in Afghanistan, and they've got Habib locked up again. He's not gonna be bothering anybody else for the rest of his life."

"Yeah, unless he escapes again." Mac sighed, and Jack's mouth slanted a little at his partner.

"Oh ye of little faith," he chided.

"He got out once, Jack," MacGyver reminded his friend. "If his motivation is strong enough, he'll find a way to get out again."

"First of all, my buddy says that they've got him in solitary confinement with no contact from the outside world at all. Unless it's an inside job, he's not getting out. Second, if he _did_ get out again, we'd deal with it, just like we did this time. We need to take this one day at a time."

MacGyver was going to argue more, but he decided against it, at least for the moment. He leaned back against his pillows and sighed. Jack knew his partner was going to obsess over the 'what-if's' if he didn't distract him, so the older man decided to bring up an older topic of discussion.

"Hey, did you ever decide on what your dream mission would be? It can be as nerdy as your little nerd heart desires."

MacGyver chuckled. He knew what his friend was doing, and he appreciated it. The blond crossed his arms and rubbed his chin as he thought about his answer.

"I think I'd have to say...hmmm. There's always been something that I've wanted to try with a copper wire, a toothbrush, and a rubber hose, so if I could find a mission where I could use that trick, I'd definitely call that my dream mission."

"While that's cool and all, and definitely nerdy, come on man," Jack replied. "You don't have a dream scenario that you'd wanna do?"

"Not really," Mac said with a shrug. "What we do every day, saving lives...that's the best mission that I could think of, and there's honestly no one else I'd rather do it with. Yeah, James Bond would be cool to work with, but he's no Jack Dalton."

Jack couldn't stop the smile that spread across his face. After a few moments, he patted Mac's leg. "Back atcha, dude. Right back atcha."

 _ **"Hello, I'd like to order a cheese pizza with a side of extra cheese for my story please."**_

 _ **So...there's the end! What did you guys think?**_

 _ **I honestly don't know when I'll be out with another story. If anyone has any prompts they'd like to see happen, let me know and I'll see what I can do :)**_


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